Indonesian Mobile Malware Mutates
Kaspersky researchers warn that the previous mobile trojan transferring credit from infected phones without authorization has seen a new variant that is able to run on J2ME phones. This allows the attackers to target a significantly larger number of mobile customers.
Two weeks ago, malware analysts from the Kaspersky anti-virus vendor advised about a new type of malware that targets mobile phones running the Symbian OS. Even though restricted to Indonesia only, the trojan, which was written in Python, had the potential to make the jump to other countries as well.
The Trojan-SMS.Python.Flocker abused the credit transferring services offered by mobile operators in Indonesia. Some providers allow customers to perform such operations only by sending a SMS message to a special 151 service number. Once installed, the trojan abused this feature by sending unauthorized messages to 151 and transferring credit in small amounts (between $0.45 and $0.90) to a number controlled by its authors.
