Trojan Hits Nokia Smartphones

A malicious trojan for phones based on Nokia's Series 60 smartphone platform disguised as shareware was revealed late last week.

The Skulls trojan is being distributed via download sites as an Extended Theme Manager for the Nokia 7610 phone, according to security vendor F-Secure. The trojan replaces existing applications with non-functional versions, according to a warning posted Friday by security vendor F-Secure. The trojan received its name because it then replaces the icons for the non-operative applications with an icon of a skull.

After a phone has been infected, the only things that will work are voice phone calls. The Series 60 platform is based on the Symbian OS. The vendor strongly urged owners of devices infected by the Skulls trojan to not re-boot the phone and to use anti-virus software designed for that platform.