Symbian anti-virus specialist SimWorks announced today that it has identified 52 previously unknown trojans for the Symbian platform, more than all of the trojans and other malware for Symbian based devices identified up to this date.

The trojans appear to be cracked versions of popular Symbian applications such as BitStorm, BugMe!, Cosmic Fighter, 3D Motoracer and SplashID. In addition to the installation files for the application itself, the files also include various versions of previously known malware such as Cabir and Locknut.

SimWorks CEO Aaron Davidson says "This is a significant development as until now we've usually found mobile trojans two or three at a time at the most. It would be easy for a malware writer to create 1 trojan and give it 52 different names, however this is not the case here where we have 52 separately cracked and infected applications. Somebody has gone to an awful lot of time and effort to turn these out".

"Previous mobile viruses have either been able to spread but cause no harm or alternatively have been able cause significant harm but not able to spread. It may be that producing large numbers of harmful trojans such as those we discovered today is a reaction by the writers to their inability to produce destructive viruses that can effectively spread. Obviously by producing large numbers of these things you greatly improve the odds of someone actually downloading and installing them".

SimWorks has yet to receive any reports of the 52 trojans identified today in the wild.

All of the trojans identified are aimed at Series 60 phones using Symbian OS v6.1 or newer such as the Nokia 3650, 6600 and 6630. None of the trojans affect UIQ based Symbian phones such as the popular SonyEricsson P900/910 and Motorola A925/1000.

SimWorks advises that the mobile phone users take the usual precautions, including never accepting files from people they do not know and never downloading applications from unknown sources and cracked sites.