New pests target Symbian-based gadgets
Several Trojan horses that target mobile phones have been discovered since the start of the year, but the threat level remains low.
Symantec, which sells software to protect mobile devices, has since the beginning of the month identified nine new Trojan horses that target the Symbian operating system. The pests crash phones, attempt to install other malicious software or try to wirelessly transmit personal data to other gadgets, according to Symantec.
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, according to recent Gartner research.
In October of last year, Nokia signed a deal with Symantec to arm its Series 60 smart phones with the Symantec Mobile Security antivirus program. F-Secure and McAfee are among the other vendors of antivirus products for mobile phones.
