Cabir, the world's first known cellphone virus, was found on the cellphone of a private user for the first time on February 20.

The antivirus group Symantec said the virus was found for the first time outside a laboratory environment when someone took a cellphone in for repairs in California.

Although Cabir is not dangerous, future versions could copy computer viruses. This could mean saving information and passing it on, wiping a cellphone's memory or making automatic calls to expensive international numbers without the owner of the phone knowing about it.

Cabir caused a stir in June last year when a group of virus creators, called 29a, sent an example of the virus to Symatec in the US and Kaspersky Labs in Russia.

Virus writers often send such an example to an anti-virus company to stress what they could do in future.

Although the virus is not harmful, it confirms that cellphones, which is being used as computers nowadays, are also susceptible to viruses.

The Cabir virus is spread over the Epoc operating system.

So-called smart phones, such as the Nokia 6600 and the SonyEricsson P900, use this operating system and are therefore vulnerable.

Companies such as Symantec already have anti-virus software available for cellphones such as the Nokia Communicator.

18 February 2005