Vodafone Spain Admit 3'000 Phones Supplied With 'Mariposa Botnet'

Vodafone Spain has admitted that over 3,000 clients may have been affected after the ‘Mariposa’ botnet found it’s way onto their HTC Magic smartphone.

The admission was made to the Spanish media yesterday following a meeting between Vodafone’s Spanish division and representatives from Panda Security.

The infection of the phones with the Mariposa botnet was first reported after Vodafone Spain supplied an infected phone to a Panda worker earlier this month. Earlier this week a second infection was reported, involving a HTC Magic phone supplied by Vodafone to a security consultant at S21Sec.

The employee from Panda told the media that Vodafone is replacing 3,000 HTC Magic smartphone microSD cards because they believe that they are infected - not as a precautionary measure.

Vodafone has already launched an investigation into the infection, but states that the issue is "isolated and local". There's no evidence to suggest that HTC Magic smartphones in use anywhere else in Europe are affected.