Increasingly, fears of mobile-phone disasters on par with the devastation wrought on PCs by malicious viruses have prompted development of handheld anti-virus software. The latest, Zebra Virus Cleaner, is available for Palm and Windows Mobile phones.

SoftReg, the company behind the software, claims that although it is small (48K) and fast-scanning it can detect and clean nearly one thousand insidious evildoers from the devices. It can real-time monitor your internet connection and other streams (e.g. SMS) and will update for new viruses automatically.

It's scary to think about a virus on your phone, but the best protection is almost always proactive prevention.