Mosquito Trojan set to infect mobiles
Mobile phone users should beware of being bitten by Mosquito, a Trojan masquerading as a game but designed to send out premium-rate SMS messages without the user's consent.
One of the first examples of malicious software aimed at mobile phone users, the Trojan has been hidden in a pirated game that describes itself as Mosquito v2.0.
But while the mosquito-shooting game is being played, the Trojan makes the handset send out text messages at premium rates.
The Trojan can affect phones running the widely used Series 60 Symbian operating system.
Once active the Trojan copies itself onto systemappsMosquitosMosquitos.app, and begins sending SMS messages.
Users of Nokia's forums have already complained at losing money because of the virus.
The model used by the hackers is very similar to the problem of rogue diallers installed on PCs, said Rachel Lashford, analyst at Canalys.
