And closer to home, and with less dramatic – yet still far-reaching effects – the first MMS mobile phone virus has appeared, noted by F-Secure.

Is this the beginning of the end, when we’ll only allow people we know to send us messages, and have to run antivirus programs and firewalls on our mobile phones?

Commwarrior, as the virus is known, seems to have been developed by Russian hackers. It spreads by Bluetooth or MMS, and infects Symbian Series 60 devices. (You’re feeling for your phone, I know. Don’t bother; they don’t explain what Symbian version they are. But here’s the list: it’s things like the Nokia 7610 and 6600, the Sendo X, Nokia N-Gage, Panasonic X700 and Samsung SGH-D710).

It sends a randomly-named file which tries to send itself on to any other phone numbers found in the local phonebook, though – perhaps because its makers weren’t trying hard enough – it can take between 15 minutes and some hours before trying to send itself on.

At the Cannes 3GSM congress earlier this year the talk in quiet corners was all about when, rather than if, a mobile phone virus would break out.

Rather as the scientists weigh up what’s out there – infectious chickens carrying a form of flu, the occasional human death, and extrapolate to pandemic – so the phone companies and makers know that what appears to be a minor event, with something that doesn’t have much power, carries the potential to turn nasty.

Codewarrior isn’t the first mobile phone virus. The Cabir virus (which only spreads via Bluetooth) is alive and well, and has so far been spotted in 17 countries, says F-Secure; one being France, where a publisher attending 3GSM had his phone hit by it.

What’s different about Codewarrior, rather like those new cases of chicken flu announced today yesterday is that it seems to be evolving. Of course, a flu virus has no purpose. Its evolution is directed accidentally by what survives and propagates best.

"The talk in quiet corners was all about when, rather than if, a mobile phone virus would break out"

By contrast, Codewarrior is planned, and the only limits on how quickly and effectively it will spread are the hackers’ determination to enhance its infectiousness, and the measures that we take against it.

The trouble is that most people won’t take any measures to protect themselves. Most British phone users – that is, tens of millions of people – are completely unaware when their Bluetooth connection is turned on. (Do a scan in a restaurant any time; you’ll get a surprising number of hits.)

As for MMS, which is free to receive, the novelty of having one turn up will impress a significant number of people who’ll happily try to open the attachment (which is an infected Symbian installation file).

Of course mobile operators can update your phone’s firmware over the air. And the hackers will adapt too. And so it will go on.

We’ve already seen it on computers: most people don’t take security measures because they assume that the technology will do it for them. Attachments should be safe, right? Antivirus software stops viruses, right? (Not if the virus is new, or the antivirus old.)

Trying to explain this for mobile phones is going to be even harder. Yet if we believe everyone, and the evidence of what’s happening, then it is inevitable. Even worse, if the message is sent by MMS then it will have come from someone you know – rather as any flu pandemic would be spread by human-to-human contact.

It’s worrying, I know. As mobiles got more powerful, and had more computer-like powers, this sort of problem was bound to happen. Hacking computers has become routine; phones are a new target to chase.

It’s going to be a pain for mobile marketers, who will have to go to extreme lengths to make sure that people trust their content. It’s going to be a pain for mobile phones users who travel a lot, who are going to be exposed to these things aplenty.

I’m afraid on this one there isn’t a warm, reassuring answer. Except, of course, not to have a Symbian Series 60 phone. Although you can be sure that the next versions will aim to hit more phones. As with computers, it might be that the best strategy is not to have the most-used phone, to avoid the ones that businesses buy in droves (because hackers will aim at those).

You might think I’m overegging this one.

Perhaps – but it’s better to be over-prepared and then disappointed, than caught out by something you were warned about. Sure, I hope that a rapidly-spreading mobile phone virus doesn’t happen. Almost as much as I hope chicken flu doesn’t turn into a pandemic.

But you have to admit, it’s a possibility.