A mobile virus that had only previously been seen in Russia, has now been found on an Indonesian cell phone, the leading Russian antivirus programmer reports. Experts say the spread of the virus will increase.

The as yet unnamed virus is a Trojan and takes control of the victim’s mobile account, and steals money from it.

Those at risk are phones which run the Symbian file system for mobile devises and have SMS money transfer enabled. After infecting the system, the virus operates by sending unauthorised SMS texts to a service number requesting a money transfer from the victims account.

As wireless phone and PDA networks become more numerous and more complex, it has become increasingly difficult to secure them against viruses. Though a major mobile epidemic is still to come, a few viruses have already been released.

Denis Maslennikov, a virus analyst for the Kaspersky Lab believes, “the unauthorised operating of mobile phone users’ accounts will gain momentum in future, and spread all across the world”.