A single malformed text message can prevent some Nokia smartphones from receiving SMSs - and the offending message can be sent from almost any Nokia phone, even non-smartphone models reports IDG.
At the Chaos Communications Congress in Berlin, organised by Germany's Chaos Computer Club (CCC) member Tobias Engel showed how smartphones running versions 2.6 through to 3.1 of Nokia's Series 60 software running on Symbian OS are unable to receive further messages by SMS or MMS after receiving malformed text messages.
Versions 2.8 and 3.1 of the software will warn of memory problems after one malformed message, and will silently fail after receiving 11 such messages, he was quoted by IDG saying.
The problem is worse for phones running versions 2.6 and 3.0 of the software: they will silently fail after receiving a single malformed message. The phone must be factory-reset to resolve the problem and allow it to receive text messages again he added.
Sony Ericsson phones running UIQ software on top of Symbian OS are also vulnerable according to security software vendor F-Secure in the same IDG report.