Antivirus company warns of new Symbian Trojan

IDG News Service - Antivirus software company F-Secure Corp. is warning mobile phone users about a new malicious software program that infects phones that use the Symbian Series 60 operating system.
The Trojan horse program, dubbed Fontal.A, prevents phones from starting. It isn't a worm or virus, and it would have to be downloaded by the phone's owner to infect a Symbian phone. It's just the latest example of malicious code, including worms and viruses, that target mobile devices.
Fontal.A was discovered yesterday and is transferred to mobile phones as an SIS format installer file called "Kill Saddam By OID500.sis," F-Secure said.
Once installed, the program damages the phone so that the phone can't reboot. Users of mobile phones infected with Fontal should not turn off their phones before removing the Trojan, F-Secure said. The company posted instructions for removing the Trojan from infected phones on its Web page.
Unlike earlier threats to mobile devices, such as the Cabir worm, Fontal doesn't attempt to spread from phone to phone. Phone users could be infected only by downloading the SIS file containing the Trojan from a Web site or peer-to-peer file-sharing network, F-Secure said.
Malicious programs that run on mobile platforms such as Symbian have become more common since Cabir, the first mobile worm, was identified in August 2004. Variants of Cabir have since spread to 16 countries, including the U.S., Japan and France. In March, antivirus companies also identified the first mobile phone worm, CommWarrior, that spreads using Mobile Messaging Service technology.
Trojan horse programs have also been proliferating. In March, antivirus companies warned about the Drever.C Trojan, which infected Symbian phones and attempted to stop mobile antivirus software running on those devices.