Symbian Phones, Targeted by Latest Batch of Trojans

Several trojans created to target mobile phones that run the Symbian operating system have been spotted this month, but experts think that there's no real threat.

Symantec, a security company that organized its very own mobile phone oriented solution division, spotted this year three new malicious programs that are hitting certain mobile phones. The Trojan horses, or programs that are disguised as legitimate applications, spread via Bluetooth or multimedia messages and can affect phones running the Symbian operating system.

According to recent Gartner research, Symbian OS is the most popular operating system for smart phones, including those sold by market leader Nokia. Two-thirds of all smart phones shipped in the third quarter of last year ran the Symbian OS.

Last October, Nokia signed an agreement with Symantec which establishes that the security company will protect the Series 60 smartphones using the Symantec Mobile Security antivirus program. F-Secure and McAfee are among the other vendors of antivirus products for mobile phones.

These trojans were classified as three versions of the "Cdropper," two versions of "Pbstealer," and one each of "Sendtool" and "Booton," according to its DeepSight alerts service.