Get used to viruses for cell phones! Fontal.A

If you find yourself among the users who first update their antivirus and afterwards make coffee there is another task you need to accomplish before enjoying that cup: updating the cell phone security solution. The motivation is simple: the number of malicious codes targeting the terminals is increasing and the last cell phone intruder is Fontal.A.

Until now, the displeasures caused by cell phone viruses consisted of displaying ironic messages or copying the virus in different locations of the phones. Fontal.A manages to completely block the terminal’s software and the only way to get rid of the virus is by formatting. Compared to this, the simple installation of a damaged font (another symptom of the virus) is not a severe problem.

"Fontal.A is a SIS trojan, so it doesn’t spread all by itself through Bluetooth or other communication channel", announces Jarno Niemela from F-Secure.

"The most probable infection method is by receiving a file through IRC or other peer-to-peer type sharing solution; after this, the file is installed on the phone. Preventing infection is easy: avoiding all dubious download sources", announces the same company.

The trojan attacks phones running the Symbian Series 60 platform, and after it infects the system, the trojan modifies the application manager so that you cannot delete Fontal.A. In case you find out that you have been infected with this trojan, don’t reboot the terminal because you won’t be able to restart it.

To get rid of the virus that paralyzed your phone you have to reformat it; this will result in the loss of all data. Only after the terminal has been disinfected, the basic functions will be resumed and you’ll be able to install new applications.