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Georgia Tech researchers have warned in a new report that mobile phones are extremely vulnerable to hackers.

"Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology believe mobile phones could be turned into 'botnets' and be used to bring down important websites or organisations, and with the nascent nature of mobile internet, handsets could be easier to infect," writes TechRadar's Gareth Beavis. "Mobile phone botnets could be used in a different way to PCs as well, for instance calling premium rate numbers without the owner knowing or automatically buying ringtones from specific sites."

"Most devices currently offer little more than substandard security protection," warns The Inquirer's Aharon Etengoff. "In addition, antivirus software, while effective, would rapidly drain massive amounts of battery life."

So, as Security ProPortal's Steve Gold notes, "The $64,000 question, of course, is what are the mobile phone manufacturers going to do to counter this problem?"

More here from the AP ... and more here from The Press Association.