According to Kaspersky Lab researcher Denis Maslennikov, the text-based trojan targeting Android mobile phones is being delivered via website downloads, using what he calls “clever search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.” He also added that this particular piece of malware is not currently available through the official Android store.
“The use of SEO is a significant development that confirms our belief that mobile malware – especially on Android devices – is a potentially lucrative business for malicious hackers”, Maslennikov noted in a recent blog post.
The Kaspersky researcher says the installed trojan places an icon for a fake pornography player on the Android users’ screen and unknowingly sends text messages to premium rate numbers at a cost of $6 per message. At this point, he says the malware is affecting only Android users in Russia.
Maslennikov noticed the malware when researching a previously discovered Android text-based trojan that Kaspersky had reported on in early August. “The code in the latest variant is similar to the first version”, he said, “and I’m pretty sure the same person (or group) is involved in creating and distributing this trojan”.