SMS Trojan Steals From Android Owners 168
siliconbits writes "A Trojan posing as a media player for Android smartphones automatically sends text messages to premium rate numbers, according to Kaspersky Lab. Company officials say the Trojan, dubbed Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, is the first of its kind for the Android platform, even though SMS Trojans are currently the most widespread type of malware on mobile phones."
Is this really a trojan? (Score:4, Informative)
Or does it tell you what it's gonna do beforehand?
If you install something that says "THIS WILL COST YOU MONEY", and it sends SMS that costs you money, how exactly is that a "trojan"?
Re:Read the TFA? (Score:3, Informative)
Found the original announcement [kaspersky.com]. No name of an app there either.
While there could definitely be such an app, the article definitely sounds like an advertisement for their product rather than a security notification.
Bad summary (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/first_trojan_for_android_phones_goes_wild.php [readwriteweb.com]
Re:Bad summary (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is this really a trojan? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is this really a trojan? (Score:4, Informative)
In all honesty, the way Android reports what an application uses is way too weak and not granular enough. Basically, you require access to 1 URL, your application needs "Full Internet Access". Want to access the GPS data? Your application needs "Location access", "Services that may cost money", etc.
The way an application declares its "needs" is through an element in the Android Manifest file. However, the choices are really limited to the existing Android services, and most of them have a 1 to 1 relation with the services they relate to, and nothing more granular such as "Requires GPS access using only satellites (costs nothing)", "Requires GPS access using cell towers", "Requires GPS access through paying services".
In the end, the user downloading an app sees warning that are mostly meaningless, and which appear in many other applications. It's close to impossible to spot a possibly-offensive application such as this Trojan.
Re:Is this really a trojan? (Score:5, Informative)
No. Each Android app runs as a separate Linux userid [android.com]. Even if you give the app filesystem access, it can't write to files that belong to other apps, let alone rewrite the apps themselves.
Re:Is this really a trojan? (Score:3, Informative)
The manifest says, in big bold letters, that the app may cost you money by placing phone calls and sending SMS.
Re:Hahaha (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
"Oh and why do you capitalize the 'middle east'? Is it a country now, worthy of promotion to a proper noun?"
Doesn't need to be a country. Region names are capitalized when they stand alone and are widely understood to designate a specific geographic (or geopolitical) area. e.g. Southern California, the Bay Area, the Middle East.
http://www.utexas.edu/visualguidelines/capitalization.html [utexas.edu]
Re:Is this really a trojan? (Score:2, Informative)
In all honesty, the way Android reports what an application uses is way too weak and not granular enough. Basically, you require access to 1 URL, your application needs "Full Internet Access". Want to access the GPS data? Your application needs "Location access", "Services that may cost money", etc.
Do you use Android? It is more granular than that. Location access can specify coarse (cell location) and fine (GPS). "Services that may cost money" can specify SMS or phone calls. Many apps use a "Phone" permission that's called "Read phone state" so that it can know when you're receiving a call. Apps like Google Voice that use the "Phone" permissions also include things like "Make outgoing calls" and "Intercept calls".
Your fine-grained permissions are right there.
Re:Is this really a trojan? (Score:3, Informative)
They dont. No MSC functionality what so ever. All communication with an Iphone is done through Itunes.
Android already uses a newer file system. The / is YAFFS2. Only /SDCARD is VFAT and this can be reformatted to EXT3 if the user wants. FAT32 is only there for compatibility with OS's that cant read EXT file systems