14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia's Series 60 smartphones have been weakened by a Trojan horse. The virus easily fools mobile phone users to install it, as it is seen as a photo editor or video codec pack by these devices.
Russian antivirus maker "Kaspersky Labs" was the first to discover the Trojan that spreads on mobile phones. It is called Trojan-SMS.Symb.OS.Viever and manages to fool the mobile phone users to install it very easily. All he has to do is agree to several prompts.
The virus is often recognized by S60 mobile phones as photoeditor, a video codec collection which can be installed on the mobile phones that use the Symbian platform. The disguise is that of very innocent and harmless programs, so the user has no suspicions at first. Only later, when the mobile phone starts behaving as if it has a mind of its own, they realize what is actually happening with their cellular.
Probably the most harmful action that this Trojan does is the fact that it immediately starts sending SMS messages to premium mobile numbers. Considering the fact that the price of such an SMS can range from USD1 to USD10, the bill will be considerably increased. Just imagine what it means having a program that automatically sends such text messages every few minutes continuously adding up to the phone bill.
This is not the first time when Nokia's Series 60 mobile phones have been weakened by virus attacks. For most of the previous Trojans, the company has released mobile security updates.
An efficient way for stopping the Trojan-SMS.Symb.OS.Viever infection has not been revealed yet. All that people can do now is to be extremely careful when it comes to installing new video or coded software. A solution for this problem will most probably be developed sometime in the near future.