As expected, mobile spam, phishing and virus attacks will increase this year. However, the attacks vary from region to region. A new study conducted by messaging security company Cloudmark shows mobile attacks in the U.S. are fairly primitive or harmless compared to more "developed" regions (in terms of mobile technology) like Asia and Europe.

E-mail-to-mobile attacks are the common types in the U.S. Because text messaging through Internet is enabled in all major U.S. operators, it has become a cost-effective weapon for many scammers. In fact, more than 25% of SMS sent through Internet are categorized as e-mail-to-mobile attacks. Here are other stats to consider:

• In 2007, 1.1 million SMS spam messages were received in the U.S., a 38 percent increase from 2006


• In 2008, the number is expected to grow by almost 50 percent to 1.5 million

These are mostly unsolicited ads or "Google pages" scams but with the developments on m-commerce and mobile marketing mobile attacks are expected to be more sophisticated as well.

For more details, read the press release