'SMSZombie' Trojan infects 500,000 Chinese Android users
Reports have emerged from China of an ingenious new backdoor Android malware attack that has infected hundreds of thousands of subscribers and can prove difficult to de-install without technical support.
Dubbed Trojan!SMSZombie.A - 'SMSZombie' for short - by one of the companies reporting on it, the malware is said to have spread through the largest Chinese Android marketplace, GFan, piggybacking itself as a back door on the back of porn-themed wallpaper apps.
The innovation is the use of a backdoor to install itself before the payload is downloaded. This makes detection harder, said the company that detected it, TrustGo. The malware becomes active once it has been selected as the smartphone's wallpaper, after which it asks to download additional files in the form of what claims to be an 'Android system service.' It then asks for administrator privileges (pressing the cancel button for this request simply throws up a dialog box each time), after which the user cannot disable the app using Android's 'uninstall app' function.
