His name is Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, and he's the director of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University. According to his research, the only major reason why a cell phone virus hasn't struck yet is because there are so many different kinds of cell phones.
Because of this fractured market share, as he described it, no one virus has been able to exploit all of the different operating systems that currently run cell phones.
But with the advent of popular mobile platforms like the BlackBerry, the iPhone and Google's mobile operating system Android, the cell phone world may become more vulnerable. Researcher Marta Gonzalez, who conducted a similar study on cell phone use, agreed with Barabasi's hypothesis.
"Once a single operating system becomes common, we could potentially see outbreaks of epidemic proportion," she said, adding that devices that pack the power of Bluetooth might be the most vulnerable in such an attack. A Bluetooth virus could spread its seed when someone with a Bluetooth-enabled device gets close to someone else with a Bluetooth-enabled device.
