Consumers' eyes and attention are keenly fixed on how to crack open the eye-candy iPhone ever since Apple launched it this year. And to tell you the truth, a lot of homebrew applications have been appearing lately showcasing the mobile phone's flexibility and functionality.

Experts, however, warn consumers that this may lead to complex mobile attacks in the future much like the problems PC users are facing right now. Anti-virus Research Director Mikko Hypponen from computer security service provider F-Secure had this to say:

The amount of hype around the iPhone is pretty unbelievable, so it's a given that people will continue to play around with it and find ways around the security features of the phone. It's quite likely that we'll see iPhone malware sooner or later.

The director further explained that despite having a Bluetooth function, the anticipated malware are expected to spread through email because iPhone doesn't use the chip for file transmission. He added that other smart phones based on the OS Symbian have a lot to worry in the future. Hypponen added:

We've seen a little over 370 different examples of malware running on smart phone platforms. Almost all of them target Symbian-based phones, because Symbian is by far the market leader, with over half the smart phones in the world running that operating system.

Anything that appears to be lucrative or of value is susceptible to being abused or taken advantage of. The gaming industry is no exception to that.

Dave Weinstein, an engineer at Microsoft, has sent out a warning that hackers are now targeting online games. Massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG), like World of Warcraft, are particularly vulnerable to such attacks. These hackers break into players' account information by using malicious programs to sell virtual items, such as gold or weapons, for cash.

While the issue seems to be trivial, F-secure security specialist Mikko Hypponen maintains that this is a real problem. In fact, there have already been lots of cases concerning malicious programs that seek to steal players' account details. Earlier this year, almost a fourth of a million characters were created in Lineage, a Korean online game, using stolen identities.

Hypponen further explains that trojans are most commonly used by criminals to steal account details. This is supposedly a harmless program that collects login and password information. The catch is that these information are actually being sent back to the hacker. Once he takes hold of the password details of a character, the hacker can now login to the account and sell the characters' weapons, potions and spells. Trojans are often disguised as programs that will give a character special powers such as invisibility. Distribution may be done through in-game chat rooms or by e-mail.

At the annual Gamesfest conference in Seattle, Weinstein urged the developers to be up on their toes, especially now that there are serious security risks on their games. "Those of you who are working on massively multiplayer online games, organized crime is already looking at you," he said.