International security company Kaspersky Lab says the first SMS Trojan Horse for the popular mobile operating system Android has been identified.

Kaspersky says the Trojan, known as Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, has already infected a number of mobile devices.

The Trojan uses SMS to spread, and masquerades as a media player application.

“Users are prompted to install a file of just over 13KB with the standard Android extension, .apk,” says Denis Maslennikov, mobile research group manager at Kaspersky Lab.

Once installed, the virus sends SMSes to premium-rate numbers set up by criminals.

Maslennikov says the Trojan-SMS category is the most widespread class of malware for mobile phones, but this is the first to attack the Android platform.

With the increased sales of smart phones using Android, research firm International Data Corp says users can expect more of these kinds of attacks. — Staff reporter, TechCentral