A research group, Mobile Antivirus Researchers Association (MARA), has found the first mobile phone to PC virus. Thankfully, it appears that the virus was sent directly to them instead of being found in the wild.
The virus included the following message, left apparently for the research staff to find, stating "This is proof-of-concept code for educational purposes only. This virus closes the gap between handhelds and desktops, now it's one big world open to all".
According to ComputerWorld:
The virus can be a nuisance in a couple of ways. On a PC, it will copy itself into the registry repeatedly as the machine is rebooted, according to the text file sent with the virus. As the virus replicates, it can eventually hamper the machine's performance, it said.
The virus waits for a connection through ActiveSync, the Microsoft Corp. program that synchronizes data on a PC with a mobile device. It copies itself to the device, and if the device is running the Windows CE or Mobile OS, all files are erased in the My Documents directory, the note said. The virus was written using C# code with Visual Studio .Net 2003.
Unfortunately, this development is something that many have been forecasting for some time.