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It’s one thing when malware attacks your phone, but it’s another when that same malware hops over to your PC, and then uses it to listen in on all your conversations on top of just messing with your phone. A newly discovered Android app — one that’s in the Google Play store — can do just that. Beware.
The sketchy app, which masquerades as a “cleaner” app called DroidCleaner, was discovered by Kaspersky, and if it infects you, its tendrils will wrap themselves around a seriously impressive number of things. Here’s a list of abilities it has just on your phone:
- Sending SMS messages
- Enabling Wi-Fi
- Gathering information about the device
- Opening arbitrary links in a browser
- Uploading the SD card’s entire contents
- Uploading an arbitrary file (or folder) to the master’s server
- Uploading all SMS messages
- Deleting all SMS messages
- Uploading all the contacts/photos/coordinates from the device to the master
But that’s not where it ends, no no no. When it runs, the app also downloads three files to the root directory of your SD card, and then when your phone gets connected to a computer in USB drive mode, a backdoor runs on your PC. From there it can control your microphone to eavesdrop on you and send the recordings back home to the mothership, but little beyond that. The Windows component of the malware isn’t nearly as apt as its Android counterpart.
Fortunately, as Kaspersky notes, AutoRun on external drives should be disabled by default if you’re running a relatively current version of Windows. Of course, folks who aren’t up-to-date are this malware’s bread and butter. Tech-savvy folks like you, dear reader, are probably not too at risk of being hit with this, but there are plenty of people out there who are right in its sights, and if nothing else, it shows that Android malware is evolving into a scary beast. But if you’re careful out there and use your head, you should stay relatively safe — maybe it’s time to warn your not-so-tech-savvy friends? [Kaspersky via The Next Web]
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But if they can use my microphone, then they might find out i cry at The Notebook…….
and that i snore loudly and shout yes angelina take me now on a regular basis
and I mean jolie not Angelina ballerina
Damn, and I really wanted to download a poor looking Russian ‘cleaner’ app for my phone!
seems legit
I guess if you do download it you shouldn’t own a smart phone, stick to a nokia 5146!
There are tons of viruses for normal phones, too, especially Nokias.
I doubt there are any for a nokia 5146?!
realy does’nt say much for googles watch over their play store does it.
and they will try and tell us again, theres nothing we can do to stop it, when they actuay mean we cant be bothered.
Part and parcel of using Android really, the users are used to this sort of thing and accept it.
Googles only interesting in consolidating it monopoly over search engines thats all Android is at the end of the day. The thing that annoys me is when Google fanatics try and blame the users with crap like “if your stupid enough to download it, you shouldn’t be allowed to use smart phones” like everyone can spot a malware app at first sight or has the time to thoroughly investigate the app before downloading it Geek snobbery and Google Zealotry in my opinion.
Ha, joke’s on them, neither of my laptop’s have a mic.