In today's culture where mobile phones also double as PDAs which also double as PCs, hackers have apparently also found a way to extend their reach and infect mobile phones with malware which we originally thought can only be caught on a PC or laptop.

McAfee's Avert Labs has just identified a new kind of malware which is specifically aimed at mobile phones. The owner of the phone receives an SMS message which says something along the lines of "We're confirming you've signed up for our dating service. You will be charged $2/day unless you cancel your order at our Web site". The unsuspecting user, for fear of getting charged, would then click on the link and cause a Trojan to be downloaded into their phone. This Trojan allows hackers to control the handset and use it for malicious activities such as denial of service attacks, installing keylogging software and stealing personal account information. This last bit is to be noted carefully, especially by people who use their mobile phones to access their bank accounts, credit card information, or institutions such as PayPal which has recently offered mobile access for their users.

This phenomenon has been coined as "SMiShing", which is short for "phishing via SMS".

Experts warn to be wary of this kind of activity, and that, should anyone receive a suspicious message, treat it as one would treat a suspicious email: by not clicking on the links provided, not providing any sensitive personal information, and deleting the message as soon as possible.

The digital age has brought con games and rip-offs that grifters like Johnny Hooker and Henry Gondorff (from the 1973 classic, The Sting) could never have imagined in their wildest dreams.

The latest involves sending an SMS text message to victims' cellphones, which thank them for subscribing to a non-existent "dating service." The message states that $2.00 a day will be added to their phone bill until their subscription is cancelled on-line.

According to Websense, the security company who issued the warning, this message has appeared in comments sections of several on-line bulletin boards.

Once the victim logs on to the fictitious "dating service" web site, they are prompted to download a file that turns out to be a "trojan-horse/4559" id="tag" title="">Trojan Horse" - a "virus" masquerading as a legitimate file. Once the Trojan Horse is installed, it turns the victim's computer into a "zombie," which can be controlled remotely by hackers. These machines become a part of a "bot" network, that are then used to launch cyber attacks.

"This is definitely the first time we've seen this specific approach," said Ross Paul, a Websense development manager. "Basically, they're taking a social engineering attack vector with a lot of users."

Websense is monitoring the situation, but at present, cannot divulge suspects' identities (who are "organized rings of people," according to Paul), or whether they are working with law enforcement.