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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAndroid Malware Creeps Into Cellphone Bills
Smartphones are meant to be headache-free compared with old-school computers. But malicious software written for Android devices can be even sneakier than the malware that invaded PCs.
The most prevalent form of Android malware scrapes small amounts of money from smartphone owners by making secret charges to their phone bills, according to a report published by Lookout, a mobile security company in San Francisco. This type of malware is called toll fraud, and it has the potential to fool plenty of people who dont pay close attention to their phone bills every month.
Heres how toll fraud works: A person downloads a malicious app. The app invisibly sends a text message to a service that uses a middleman service that has a relationship with the malware author. A confirmation message is sent back to the malware, which blocks it from being seen by the customer and confirms the charge. The charge goes to the users bill, and the carrier takes its cut and gives the rest of the money to the service and the middleman, and thus the malware author.
In its report, Lookout estimates that from the beginning of 2012 to the end of 2013, 18 million Android users may encounter malware. About 72 percent of the malware that Lookout detected this year was toll fraud, and the company expects this number to grow, because even though the process is complex, the code isnt difficult to replicate. The company advised cellphone owners to regularly check their bills for suspicious charges.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/lookout-toll-fraud/?ref=technology
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Why would these apps only be written to affect Android units? I assume that these apps are being written for all the devices out there. Sounds like someone with connections (Sprint and the iPhones, and/or whoever it is with Droid), wants the consumers to back away from Android.
EOTE
(13,409 posts)Open source means that almost anyone can write for it and there's relatively little oversight. Open source can be a great thing, but this is one of the down sides.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)With little or no restrictions. Malware city.
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/10/25/in-one-year-android-malware-up-580-23-of-the-top-500-on-google-play-deemed-high-risk
The iOS ecosystem is watched carefully for malware.
That article in my OP was written by a New York Times tech reporter, who has not exactly been kind to Apple.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Regarding anything, unless it is something in particular I am about to purchase.
And back in the day (1983 to '93) when I read several computer and tech related mags a month, I seemed to feel that we the consumer were being offered up a bill of goods. A new thing would come on the market, and writers would be telling us consumers it was the greatest thing in the world. Often the product was buggy, especially so if it was first generation.
But it was easy to see what was happening - that same "great new product" often had two or three half page or full page ads in that publication.