Cell phone viruses poised to reach epidemic proportions

Well, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, director of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University, says that it is because a highly fragmented market share has effectively hindered outbreaks thus far.

He warns that cell phone viruses will pose a serious threat once a single mobile operating system's market share grows sufficiently large, and that that may not be far off considering the 150 percent annual growth rate of smart phones.

"We haven't had a problem so far because only phones with operating systems, so-called 'smart phones', are susceptible to viral infection," said Marta Gonzalez, one of the authors of a study report published in the journal Science.

"Once a single operating system becomes common, we could potentially see outbreaks of epidemic proportion because a mobile phone virus can spread by two mechanisms: a Bluetooth virus can infect all Bluetooth-activated phones in a 10-30 meter radius, while Multimedia Messaging System (MMS) virus, like many computer viruses,