Spammers poised to target BlackBerry and iPhone owners

The rising popularity of smartphones such as the BlackBerry and the iPhone will make them targets for viruses and spam, security experts believe.

In the past few years the internet has experienced a huge rise in security problems, led by criminal gangs who have used spam and viruses for financial scams. Mobile phones have remained relatively unscathed, but that is set to change as sales of smartphones surge.

In the first three months of this year 32.2 million smartphones were sold - 11 per cent of all handset sales and a 29 per cent increase on the same period last year.

These e-mail and internet-enabled handsets are moving out of the corporate market into consumers' hands, and the recent launch of the 3G iPhone is expected to fuel sales further. Credit Suisse analysts predict that 275 million smartphones will be sold next year, boosting penetration to 19 per cent and making the mobile world attractive to criminals.