Virus writers have created a mobile Trojan capable of rendering an infected Symbian Series 60 unusable. Fontal-A is a SIS file Trojan that installs a corrupted font file on the device, causing it to fail when the mobile phone is next rebooted.

Fontal-A is a Trojan, incapable of spreading by itself or via Bluetooth. The small risk of infection applies only to people in the habit of installing warez mobile games files or the like onto their mobile phone.

As well as installing a corrupted font file, Fontal-A also damages the application manager so that it cannot be uninstalled. No new applications can be installed until the phone is disinfected. If the user has attempted to reboot the phone the only way to disinfect it is to reformat a mobile device, according to preliminary advice by anti-virus firm F-Secure. It warns that reformatting the phone will cause all data on the mobile to be lost. ®

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