BANGALORE, INDIA: The dreaded worms, spam, viruses and hackers may just not be posing a treat to desktops or laptops but could well be on their way into your pocket or purse, states CNN report.

With the popularity of smartphones -- like the Blackberry, iPhone, Palm and the emerging Droid, these gadgets are set to become sweeter target of hackers.

According to the British technology analysis firm Gartner.more than 139 million smartphones were sold worldwide, a 13.9 percent increase from 2007. With Apple planning to release the iPhone in China, and a more affordable Android handset expected to hit the market by the end of the year, the pool of potential targets is only expected to get deeper.

And compared to even a year ago, when analysts say most people used smartphones mostly for voice calls and e-mail, an increasing number of users are now surfing the Web, paying bills and doing other activities that open them up to abuses.

Security companies already have seen several threats hitting smartphones. In most cases, they say, they're targeted at individuals rather than the millions of desktop or laptop users that a typical e-mail attack can impact.

Security analysts say they've already seen all of the major online threats -- Trojan horses, viruses, worms -- spreading on smartphones, often through e-mail attachments sent to the phones.

One attack even used a Bluetooth headset to try to attack other Bluetooth users within 20 feet of the infected unit.

Security problems most pronounced in the early days of the smartphone -- when a majority of them ran on a single operating system and it was easier for malware to spread from one phone to the next.

One of the problems now, analysts say, is that people who take security precautions on their home computers either forget to do so with their phones or don't think they need to in the first place.
(Source: CNN)