UK owners of Bluetooth-enabled smartphones and PDAs are widely ignoring the security risks posed by the short-range wireless technology and leaving themselves open to hackers, research claimed today.

Antivirus company Kaspersky Lab conducted research in London over three days, detecting more than 2,000 Bluetooth-enabled devices in 'visible to all' mode, the configuration needed for a hacker to attack the device.

The research was undertaken on the London Underground network during rush-hour, at Victoria, King's Cross and Waterloo train stations, and at Europe's largest security exhibition InfoSecurity 2006.

More than half of the 2,000 devices were detected at InfoSecurity and at one stage the number of devices within range was so large that Kaspersky Lab's software had trouble processing all the data.

At one point the firm picked up more than 100 devices in 'visible to all mode' in a radius of 100 metres.

Alexander Gostev, senior virus analyst at Kaspersky Lab, pointed out that mobile phones have previously fallen victim to the Cabir virus that that uses Bluetooth to replicate.

"The figures are worrying, particularly those collated at InfoSecurity, where you'd expect people to be far more security conscious," he said.

"If a single mobile phone had been infected, nearly all vulnerable devices would have been infected in less than an hour.

"Mobile phone viruses are nowhere near as prevalent as PC viruses but, as a precautionary measure, it's worth setting your mobile's visibility to 'hide phone' unless you specifically want to exchange information with someone."

Click the link for the full Kaspersky Bluetooth London 2006 study.