Help! A virus ate my mobile
The first ever computer virus that can infect mobile phones has been discovered, anti-virus software developers say.
But until now they say it has had no harmful effect.
The French unit of the Russian security software developer Kaspersky Labs said that that virus, called Cabir, seems to have been developed by an international group specialising in creating viruses that try to show "that no technology is reliable and safe from their attacks".
Cabir infects the Symbian operating system that is used in several makes of mobiles, notably the Nokia brand, and propagates through the new bluetooth wireless technology that is in several new mobile phones.
If the virus succeeds in penetrating the phone, it writes the inscription 'Caribe' on the screen and is then activated every time the phone is turned on.
It can scan for phones that are also using the bluetooth technology and can send a copy of itself to the first handset it finds.
According to the anti-virus software developer F-Secure, the discovery of Cabir is proof that there are technologies now available to create viruses for mobile phones and that they are now known to the writers of computer viruses.
Anti-virus experts have been warning for months that mobile phone viruses are set to multipy, given the increasingly diverse uses of mobile phones.