When most people think about internet viruses, they think about how they can affect their home or office computers. However, internet viruses are not just limited to your computers. Now, they have the ability to attack your cell phones as well. If you take the time to think about it, it really does make sense. Why would internet viruses be limited to computers when we can also access the internet from our cell phones?

Many cell phone users don’t have any idea that their phones are susceptible to internet viruses. However, this does not protect them from having their cell phones attacked by a debilitating virus. So, how exactly do cell phones catch internet viruses? There are three main ways.

1. Downloads: The most common way internet viruses spread is through internet downloads. This is true for both computers and cell phones. With cell phones such as the iPhone and the Blackberry, users are constantly downloading apps off the internet as well as media files sent to them through email. Understand that any type of file you download on your phone has the ability to infect it with a virus.

2. Multimedia Text Messages: These types of text messages usually have an attachment that the receiver has to download in order to view. The most common type of multimedia text message is one that has pictures or a video attached. If you download and open a MMS text message that has an internet virus attached, it will normally send itself to everyone else in your contact list. You may not even realize your cell phone has a virus until one of your contacts tells you about a message “you” sent.

3. Bluetooth: The internet viruses that are caught and spread through Bluetooth wireless connections are especially hard to prevent. This is because they are able to spread from one phone to the next through the actual Bluetooth technology. When a cell phone that has both Bluetooth capabilities and a virus, and detects another cell phone in the area with Bluetooth, it can automatically send the virus to that phone.