COMPUTER experts in Russia claim to have have identified the first mobile phone virus.
Mobile phone users, hitherto believed to be safe from hackers seeking to infiltrate confidential information on their handsets, may now find that their phone is vulnerable to attack.
Phone users with Bluetooth wireless connections, which allows handsets to send and receive information locally without the use of cables or cell network, could be at risk from the new worm, known as Cabir.
Programmers at Kaspersky, an anti-virus firm in Moscow, said that the virus was emailed to them by a group of hackers in Spain. They believe that the goal of the hackers was to prove that no technology is safe from attack.
The virus apparently uses the Bluetooth short-range wireless feature to detect other similar models nearby. It then transfers itself to the new host.
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So far, it appears that the worm causes no real damage but it does copy three files to a hidden directory, displays the word “Caribe” on the screen, and runs an infected phone’s battery down by continually searching for another victim.
Symbian, a company that makes mobile phone operating systems, said that a tainted device will only target the first Bluetooth phone it finds and even then the owner must accept the message and confirm two software installations.
A spokeswoman for Nokia, the mobile phone giant, said: “The risk is limited to cases when a consumer downloads an application from an unknown or unreliable source and approves installation.”