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(Before everything excuse me because of my English) Today one of my friends asked me about his Nokia 130 Dual SIM. There was a problem about Short Message System. No Messages were sent from that phone. First I thought there is a problem with Message Center configuration. So, I checked it out. There was't any problem with SIM configuration and also with Second SIM. I ejected that SIM and put it in my rooted Samsung Galaxy Mini GT-S5570I. My phone rebooted. When I tried to have a call, some buttons where invisible and their size was changed; Also my lock screen image was transparent. There wans't any Reset option in settings. I think its important to say: There isn't any anti-virus on my phone. I reseted my phone from bootloader.

After this scenario, I wanna repeat my question:

Is there any way to transfer virus (or any other hack/crack software) from SIM Card and activate that on phones?

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    "Rooting" a phone is often done with the computer equivalent of bashing through a door with a sledgehammer. Some unintended side-effects may occur. The symptoms you describe match more mundane bugs than a true virus. Modern virus don't remove some buttons or reboot phones; they either try to keep invisible, or, if they really want to spread mayhem, they destroy the phone a lot more effectively.
    – Tom Leek
    Commented Aug 12, 2014 at 15:55
  • Dear @TomLeek , Too many thanks for your comment. If I wanna clear my question, that might change to: Can virus store and run from SIM Card?
    – Tayyebi
    Commented Aug 12, 2014 at 16:30
  • You might be interested in this video: Rooting Sim Cards
    – user10008
    Commented Aug 13, 2014 at 0:10

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Practically - no. The SIM card is a computer. By design, this computer can control the mobile phone. It is possible to install new software on this computer, but if this SIM card wasn't created by you, you can't sign new software properly and it will not work. (Also sorry for my english :)

There is interesting Defcon 21 video "The Secret Life of SIM Cards" related to this topic http://youtu.be/31D94QOo2gY.

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rsm's answer is pretty wrong - there are vulnerabilities for SIM cards. An attacker can install an applet on your card (it probably won't happen because it really difficult to find those vulnerabilities).

After the installation, the SIM card can transfer data to phone or make the phone open a url and download a file (proactive commands).

So yeah - it's possible to store a virus (more like a stager) and run from a SIM. In theory (I don't think it exists), it's possible to setup a botnet from SIM cards.

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