Internet security giant Kasperksy Lab has detected a second piece of malware, categorised as a Trojan-SMS, targeting smartphones running on Android.
According to the company, the malware is being distributed through Russian language sites that come out on top in searches for pornographic movies. “Revealingly, the owners of these adult content sites are deliberately prompting Android users to download the new Trojan, while users of other platforms receive the desired content.”
Similarly to its predecessor, the latest Trojan, named Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.b, masquerades as a media player, and a device can only be infected if the user manually installs the application.
Users are asked to download the pornplayer.apk application from an infected Web page in order to view adult content videos. The installation file is only 16.4KB and during installation the Trojan seeks the user's consent to send SMS messages - a requirement not commonly needed by media players.
Once the fake application is launched, the Trojan begins sending SMS messages to a premium rate number without the user's knowledge or consent. The messages cost $6 each, resulting in large sums being transferred from the user's account to the cyber criminals.
“Android users should pay close attention to the services that an application seeks permission to access,” says Denis Maslennikov, mobile research group manager at Kaspersky Lab.
“Automatically permitting a new application to access every service that it says it needs to means you could end up with malicious or unwanted applications doing all sorts of things without requesting any additional information.”
As the malicious code inside this new Trojan is similar to the first Android Trojan-SMS discovered by Kaspersky Lab a month ago, it is likely both applications were written by the same cyber criminal or criminals.
According to IDC analysts, Android mobile device vendors are enjoying the most dramatic growth in sales among the smartphone vendors globally.
Kaspersky's experts predict that more malicious programs targeting devices running on the Android platform will emerge in the near future. They say they are working on developing security technologies and solutions to protect this operating system.
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