Spanish police arrested a 28-year old man on Saturday they suspect of involvement with a mobile phone virus.

He is suspected of distributing malware which targetted Symbian phones. The arrest follows a seven month investigation.

Spanish police are claiming that the virus, which was propagated over Bluetooth connection, infected 115,000 Symbian handsets and cost users and their network operators millions of euros.

The only infection for which such claims aren't laughable is called Commwarrior, which did spread rapidly around Spain last year. In common with most Bluetooth infections users are required to accept the message, and agree to install the software, before any damage is done, and that damage is generally limited to propagation of the virus.

Quite why this cost millions of euros isn't clear; but claiming that a few people were inconvenienced would hardly justify the 7-month investigation.

More details here here, while F-Secure and O2 both detail the virus here and here.®

Related stories

• Chinese mobile users targeted by Trojan (5 March 2008)
• InfoJack Trojan burrows into Windows CE machines (27 February 2008)
• Love lure used to spread mobile malware (22 January 2008)
• Don't touch that Microsoft Security Bulletin email (28 June 2007)
• Mobile Clinic Mobile Clinic: How do you make mobile data secure? (20 June 2007)
• Phishermen, not zombies, causing biggest security woes (20 June 2007)
• Symbian malware escapes Russia (21 May 2007)
• Mobile Spy ups mobile snooping powers (2 May 2007)
• Killer virus hoax panics Pakistan (13 April 2007)
• 3GSM Mobile malware menace hits high - McAfee (12 February 2007)
• Sophos changes tack with mobile anti-virus launch (9 February 2007)