Behind the antivirus mask lies a deadly Skull

The Skulls.L is a minor modification of Skulls.C trojan. The only difference from previous variants is that the new worm is named the same as the F-Secure Mobile Anti-Virus installation package.

"The trojan obviously does not contain pirate copied version of Anti-Virus, it breaks the system applications on the phone, so that none of the smartphone functions of the phone are as long as the phone is infected," said Jarno Niemela, a virus researcher writing on the company's weblog.

He advised users not to download F-Secure Anti-Virus files from any server other than his company's servers or from the short link phoneav.com, which contains the Trojan.

Other experts said this new type of malware is a wake-up call to businesses and they need to realize that these threats are real and need to be dealt with in the same way as malware within the corporate network.

"As the number of people working remotely that need to access the corporate network with a mobile handset continues to grow, it's crucial that businesses respond to this and make sure they can offer them the same level of security protection as desk-bound colleagues," said Philip Stanfield, practice director at Morse Mobile. "When it comes to this type of threat, prevention is always better, and cheaper, than cure."

As reported in SC Magazine, Commwarrior, the first mobile phone virus that spreads via MMS messages, finally made its way to Finland.

www.f-secure.com