According to Irfan Asrar, a security researcher with Symantec, supporters of animal rights have been staging a campaign against the app for some time, and encouraging a `write in' complaint campaign.
Since this approach appears to have failed, the supporters have turned hacktivist and are now targeting users of the app in order to get their message across.
Asrar says that his researchers have discovered that a trojan planted into an older version of Dog Wars – beta v0.981 – that is circulating on warez (pirate) sites, but adds that this version is not on the official Android Market.
In his latest security posting, Asrar says that if users agree to the permissions required by the beta edition of the app, which includes access to the text message feature on the device, when they run the app, the trojan code generates text messages to all the contacts in the device's contact list saying “I take pleasure in hurting small animals, just thought you should know that.”
The beta version of the app, says the Symantec researcher, can be spotted by the fact that its display icon says the word `peta' in its logo, rather than beta. Looking for this, however - as Asrar observes - is easier said than done on a tiny smartphone screen.
The final action of the Dogbite trojan is reported to generate a one-word text message to a cellular short code of 73822, a US short code operated by PETA, the People for Ethical Treatment of Small Animals.
“In spite of the fact that few clues have been left behind, we have no reason to believe that PETA had anything to do with this app, and that it is most likely the work of someone attempting to associate the app with PETA or to gain sympathy by the association”, notes Asrar.