 Android not safe
By Theo Boshoff
It seems that it is time for mobile phones running the Android operating system (OS) to be targeted by cyber criminals now, as IT security company Kaspersky Lab found the first malicious program classified as a Trojan-SMS.
The Trojan virus is named Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, says the company, and has already infected a number of mobile devices running Android.
According to the company, the virus is disguised as a harmless media player application. “Users are prompted to install a file of just over 13KB with the standard Android extension .APK,” the company says.
After being installed, the Trojan virus starts sending SMSes to premium rate numbers in secret costing the user money, by passing money from the user’s account to that of the cyber criminal.
Kaspersky notes that spyware has also already been found on other Android devices, but not as rife as on devices running other operating systems.
As with the old story of Windows PCs being targeted more than Apple Mac PCs because there are more people using Windows-based devices, the same seems to be true for Android devices, as their numbers grow.
Says Denis Maslennikov, mobile research group manager at Kaspersky: “We can expect to see a corresponding rise in the amount of malware targeting Android and as such we are actively developing technologies and solutions to protect this operating system and plans to release Kaspersky Mobile Security for Android in early 2011.”
The company implore users to be more watchful about what programmes, services and applications they install on their phones to help avoid this kind of virus and exploitation to happen to them. |
