A recent security exploit affecting mobile phones has been identified that compromises mobile phones by simply receiving SMS or text messages.  While most of the news surrounding this exploit has focused on the iPhone, other popular phones are also at risk.

A recent article by ZDNet describes the exploit for the iPhone this way.

An attacker could exploit the hole to make calls, steal data, send text messages, and do more or less anything a person can do on their iPhone.

Edit: PCMag reported that on July 31 Apple issued a patch to address this exploit for the iPhone.

The article goes on to say that these specially crafted SMS messages can also affect Android and some Windows Mobile phones.  ZDNet says,

Android-based phones were found to be similarly susceptible to an SMS attack. However, while an attacker could temporarily knock the phone off the cell network, they could not take control.

Google has reportedly already patched Android for this vulnerability.

Reports so far are that the exploits effects for Windows Mobile may be limited to HTC handsets due to a bug in HTC’s code for their interface.  For these Windows Mobile phones, ZDNet says that,

The user interface on Windows Mobile devices could also be exploited via the SMS messages to create a situation where there are no buttons to push, so the phone cannot be used.

This is a developing threat as security experts are still trying to understand the full potential of this exploit.  Some analysts believe that this threat potentially affects texting devices for all GSM carriers, which includes AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.