To date, mobile phones have not seen large-scale attack by viruses. However, a growing number of phones, or smartphones, have a software structure similar to that of PCs. They are connected to the internet, can receive third-party applications and emails and can execute web pages, including those running programmes.
Viruses can be carried in email attachments, internet downloads or Bluetooth transfers from other smartphones. In addition, service providers are having to be more and more open, which means they are making their internal structures increasingly transparent in order to allow application developers to provide their own programs.
These ingredients are precisely those that triggered the introduction of viruses into PCs, so naturally we would expect that this threat to mobile phones to increase. It is therefore advisable to install anti-virus software on your mobile device just as you would on your PC.