Agence France-Presse, via news.com.au, reports:

THE first ever computer virus that can infect mobile phones has been discovered, anti-virus software developers said today, adding that up until now it has had no harmful effect.

The French unit of the Russian security software developer Kaspersky Labs said that that virus - called Cabir - appears to have been developed by an international group specialising in creating viruses which try to show “that no technology is reliable and safe from their attacks”.

Cabir infects the Symbian operating system that is used in several makes of mobiles, notably the Nokia brand, and propagates through the new bluetooth wireless technology that is in several new mobile phones.

If the virus succeeds in penetrating the phone, it writes the inscription ‘Caribe’ on the screen and is then activated every time that the phone is turned on.

It is able to scan for phones that are also using the Bluetooth technology and is able to send a copy of itself to the first handset that it finds.

According to the anti-virus software developer F-Secure, the discovery of Cabir is proof that the technologies are now available to create viruses for mobile phones and that they are now known to the writers of computer viruses.

Anti-virus experts have been warning for months that mobile phone viruses are set to multipy, given the increasingly diverse uses of mobile phones.