Mobile phones under siege in Australia

17/02/2012

Cyber-criminals in Australia are forcing locals to spend more than $15 a month to protect their mobile phones.

Fraudsters are gaining access to smartphones and are hiding spyware in games, tricking them into sending SMSs to premium numbers and stealing personal information, it has been claimed.

The three major mobile phone companies are now providing dedicated anti-virus and anti-theft apps for their customers as they look to secure the personal and working information that people store on their devices.

Vodafone's head of applications James Dampney said research by McAfee had revealed that malware attacks on mobile phones reached an all-time high in 2011.

David Hall from Symantec added: "What the bad guys do is take legitimate software, open it up, put the back end software in it and then put it back up for free."

Similarly, the creators of two iPhone apps were recently forced into an apology after it emerged they had uploaded users' address book information without explicit consent.

Posted by Peter Robinson

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