Smartphone Trojan Threat Overstated, Vendors Say

Two vendors of anti-virus software said that the current threat of viruses aimed at smartphones is not as great as initially believed.

Earlier in the week, anti-virus vendor Simworks reported 52 new trojans aimed at Symbian phones. Thursday, another anti-virus vendor, F-Secure, said it had examined the 52 viruses and confirmed that they were, indeed, malicious and were based on the Skulls trojan, which was first reported last November.

However, the company said that most of the files were simple variants of each other.

"So even as there are large number of infected files, the actual number of new trojans is quite low," the company said. "We estimate that after analysis the files will fall under 2-3 variant letters."

In addition, none of the trojans the company examined have been found in the wild.

"So the case is interesting from academical (sic) point of view, but not a real threat to the users," the company said. Simworks agreed.

"Until reports are received of these trojans in the wild, there is little risk to end users," Aaron Davidson, SimWorks' CEO, said in a statement.