Risks Rise of Computer-Borne Cell Phone Viruses

The trojans found recently are mostly hidden in games for smartphones that run on the Series 60 Symbian operating system used in models from Nokia.

Closely held SimWorks said the catch doubled the number of known mobile viruses. “This is a significant development as until now we’ve usually found mobile trojans two or three at a time at the most,” Chief Executive Aaron Davidson said.

Symbian, in which Nokia and other handset vendors own stakes, is the most widely used operating system for smartphones, which run small computer-like applications such as navigation programs, email and enterprise planning software.