Android Botnet Infects 1 Million Plus Phones 92
Trailrunner7 writes "Up to a million Android users in China could be part of a large mobile botnet, according to research unveiled by Kingsoft Security, a Hong Kong-based security company, this week. The botnet has spread across phones running the Android operating system via Android.Troj.mdk, a Trojan that researchers said exists in upwards of 7,000 applications available from non-Google app marketplaces, including the popular Temple Run and Fishing Joy games."
Update: 01/19 12:54 GMT by S : Changed summary to reflect that these apps didn't come from Google Play.
Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.zdnet.com/new-android-malware-infects-100000-chinese-smartphones-7000000497/ [zdnet.com]
Not in Google Play at all.
Re:Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
And excellent wording for FUD... after all "up to 1 million aliens *could* be controlling the worlds governments"
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Only if you fail to lead the plant army correctly!
Re:Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Title: 1 Million+
First line of summary: Up to a million
Yes, standard /. fare lately. Not only is it meaningless (and thus not nerdy - the details are more important than the big picture to a nerd), but the editors contradict themselves and come across as both careless and ignorant.
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The actual original article (Xinhua via Google translate)
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.xinhuanet.com%2Ffortune%2F2013-01%2F11%2Fc_114339598.htm [google.com]
The "Security researchers": Jinshan networks / Kingsoft (DuBa)
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.ijinshan.com/&prev=/search%3Fq%3DKingsoft%2B(DuBa)%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DtyH%26tbo%3Dd%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26channel%3Drcs [google.com]
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Well, I for one, welcome our hypothetical overlords!
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Damn it! iPhone is once again not affected. One of these days I'll get the chance to welcome the malware overlords!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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[Citation Needed]
Due to the destruction of the JB scene, no Apple device made since 2010 that runs iOS 6 can run apps outside the App Store. Maybe an iOS dev could have a beta app out that might do some damage, but people would be knowingly installing it.
With over five years of not even a single malware issue in the wild, iOS has showed that it is the most secure OS in history.
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Various incarnations of MVS [wikipedia.org] have been running since 1974. No viruses or malware reported. Five years barely even registers on that time scale.
Real men run their operating systems on big iron.
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Apple iPhones have infected apps out there in the wild also, same as Android.
No, not the same. A drop of water, long since evaporated is not the same as a bucket of water.
If you jailbreak your phone and download apps from outside the apple store, you too will be risking getting malware.
In further news, condoms are useless if you cut the ends off them. Doh!
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Re:Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't that imply that if Google-Play/Android was a walled garden like iPhone/iTunes this would not have happened?
Um, no.
Just because China Mobile's (cr)app store isn't doing its job doesn't mean Google should become as draconian as Apple in this regard. People have a choice, and if they are willing to download from a poorly regulated source, and are willing to endure infections just so they don't have to pay for their apps, that's their business. I certainly hope their data plans are unlimited.
Re:Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
You did not answer the question about walled gardens. In fact, you gave a hint that the absence of a walled garden *did* exacerbate the problem.
Probably does. The price of freedom is that people are free to install malware.
Re:Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
The price of Apple's walled garden is that they get to define what is malware. (So far, things like apps to teach children how to program, games that are too 'political', porn, Android magazines, etc). I'll take my chances, thanks.
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Don't forget, APL's already allowed actual malware onto their store with at least a few thousand installs, before Charlie Miller came out and announced to the world that his app was whitehat malware (but malware nonetheless).
Makes you wonder how many applications are malware on the store when there's only "one pair of eyes" that can look at the apps easily. I mean, these apps could easily abuse the same jailbreak bug to install themselves...
Apple Hater, behind the times as usual (Score:2)
So far, things like apps to teach children how to program, games that are too 'political', porn, Android magazines, etc
Perhaps the last two you might have something, but there is a slew of apps to help you actually program on the iPad/iPhone.
And of course you can always jailbreak. So on iOS, only the people who know what the risks are are exposed to them. That seems like a far more sensible layered security model than screwing over one million technologically inept people just because you are too lazy to j
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Probably does. The price of freedom is that people are free to install malware
... which is not what 99% of the population wants.
This malware problem has caused a lot of the shift away from Wintel PCs, and there's no reason the same can't happen to Android.
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The price of freedom is that people are free to install malware.
Which makes Windows the freest platform of all by far.
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Or you could read the reviews in the play store before downloading. If the app is full of crap there are 500 persons telling you so. Not really hard...
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Well, it's not like you have a choice. Google Play does not work in China, as well as usual stuff you would expect to work like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Drive and even Gmail. So you have alternative stores that provide apps, but you also have mobile antivirus software in China which is what most sensible people would use.
Then again, with China Mobile alone we are talking about 670 million users compared to 100 million users that AT&T has. It is quite impressive that there aren't any more infec
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The only irony is that the readership of Slashdot is well in the affirmative for freedom of citizens, gun ownership, freedom from censorship and tyranny, yet some how manages to be split on the idea of having some corporate entity decide what can and can't do in the name of malware prevention.
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I think it's due ot direct exposure. Most of those rights get abused by an irresponsible few (who often ruin it for the responsible many).
Very few /.'ers have experienced the tragedy that strikes from say, irresponsibl
Re:Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:5, Informative)
Since most people are too lazy to RTFA the malware infected apps are actually on China Mobile's own app store, not Google Play.
It looks like another case of a company thinking "everyone has an app store, we should get one!" but not realizing there is a need to actively police it.
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The original article they linked to iirc was some smaller website that did list Google play
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Yet, in the past, Slashdot has held that's not a bug, but rather is a key *feature* of the Android ecosystem - the ability to leave the walled garden and wander in the wilds.
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And it still is?
Consider there are plenty of application stores like GetJar, Amazon, MiCandy that have never suffered an infection because they're reputable...
It's like you go to a drug dealer cartel and not expect them to have drugs or weapons. Some people can't be trusted to keep you safe.
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In this case, either China Mobile provides the store or they include a third party since Google Play does not work in China. I would actually feel safer to use something from China Mobile given they are the largest carrier, but this incident proves that if you are in China, you are better off using a Windows Phone or an iPhone, even if they are outrageously expensive over there.
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Everybody knows Chinese people always download from Chinese pirate sites. You can get everything for free. Including infected.
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The virus/malware authors though, might not appreciate you pirating their software, and may sue as a result....
Is M-x tetris pirating? (Score:2)
Re:Excellent fact-checking as usual (Score:4, Informative)
Chinese users often have no choice, as Google Play is often not present in the phone. Manually installing it is quite complicated.
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Amazon's store works on many devices.
In which countries? The last time I checked, paid apps on Amazon Appstore were available only to billing addresses in the United States of America.
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Not in Google Play at all.
Not this time.
But there were cases of malware in the official Google store as well.
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http://www.zdnet.com/new-android-malware-infects-100000-chinese-smartphones-7000000497/ [zdnet.com]
Not in Google Play at all.
Considering those are all Chines phones, that's not really surprising. Most "Android" phones sold in China don't have access to Google Play.
Which is the real problem here: Google has walled them out of their garden and forces them to go to even unsafer places.
Not from Google Play (Score:3, Informative)
Actual BBC story:"Trojan had been found in more than 7,000 apps downloaded from _non-Google-owned_ stores."
It's a bit weird that neither the submitter nor the threatpost author thought it strange that thousands of popular apps on Google Play would include a trojan that has been known about for over a year?
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Actual BBC story:"Trojan had been found in more than 7,000 apps downloaded from _non-Google-owned_ stores."
It's a bit weird that neither the submitter nor the threatpost author thought it strange that thousands of popular apps on Google Play would include a trojan that has been known about for over a year?
It's a bit ironic that fAndroids, who have been criticising Apple's walled garden for years, are now criticising other Android users for making full and enthusiastic use of the freedom of the Android platform to download apps from anywhere they damn well please rather than only dealing exclusively with Google owned or Google sanctioned stores. Not to say that walled gardens are a good thing but this discussion is nevertheless quite amusing since it tacitly admits that walled gardens, for all their other fau
Re:Not from Google Play (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a simple case of "just because you can, doesnt mean you should". I like the OPTION of loading apps from anywhere. I also pay attention to what gets installed and where. I turn off the alternate installation locations unless I am actively installing something. The people who want pay apps for free just pay a price that isnt money, and their stupidity should have no impact on my ability to be allowed to use my device as I want. No need to force your draconian bliss on the rest of the planet.
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As was shown in the 70's you never know that the source your using is actually trusted.
Just because the source is good doesn't mean the compiler was.
many an infected and ultimately untrustworthy app was been downloaded from google play. Google like apple though monitor them and updates get pushed through so widespread failures are rare.
Draconian bliss can be used for good. The trick is balancing out the Draconian rules with fairness.
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this is true, but there is a big difference in the monitored stores and the bootleg stores that people are getting infected in. The google owned store could have junk inserted from a bad compiler, where the chinese free stores have intentional malware inserted.
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I haven't seen anyone doing that.
And a sledgehammer is also an amazingly efficient way of cracking a walnut. "All th
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Can I as the original commenter take part in this second-guessing of my implied message?
I did not say "this only happened because the affected Android users did not limit themselves to the Google store" at all as you claim -- pretty bold of you to just say that when my message is clearly visible above... Also, nothing in my post was meant to "imply the criticism that if they had remained in the Google fold their phones would not have been affected" (in fact I don't even have a clear opinion on whether the o
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And a sledgehammer is also an amazingly efficient way of cracking a walnut. "All their other faults" is a nice way of glossing over glossing over the fact that the cons of a walled garden outweigh the pros.
That's rather subjective, isn't it? I would imagine that Apple's "walled garden" approach works just fine for most of its users. You do see a lot of complaining, but keep in mind that people are more likely to go to a forum to complain than to say everything's great.
For myself, as an iOS user, I have only been miffed with Apple's policies three times. The first was MyWi, but that is probably due more to the carrier; the second was Swype, but now that Siri's out I pretty much use voice dictation for my ph
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There's a difference between curated and walled.
Computing Power (Score:3)
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...the bot would at most be able to tap a percentile of the CPU's power.
10 percent of a million CPU's is still equivalent to 100,000 CPU's.
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Or generating massive rainbow tables...
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Don't want to BOINC and call 911 on one device (Score:2)
Imagine if botnets were put to benevolent uses, like distributed computing projects.
Distributed computing botnets would run up a CPU bill, causing the user to click "What has been using my battery?". That's why, for example, the Distributed.net client didn't get ported to PDAs and the like.
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Imagine if botnets were put to benevolent uses, like distributed computing projects. Seriously forget credit card data - nobody has any money these days. Process some folding at home and collect some Nobels.
Yeah, sure. Drain some million Chinese guys phone battery, so somebody else can get a Nobel Prize.
A million bots! All on dialup! (Score:1)
Alright, not exactly dialup. But close enough for making the comparison on slashdot.
Should be interesting, trying not to make too much of a mess to avoid running the bots out of traffic allowance and/or running up the punters' bills enough to notice something is amiss.
state (Score:1)
If it was china I wouldn't be surprised if those rootkits were backed by chinese officials.
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Hong Kong-based security company? (Score:2)
"Kingsoft Internet Security 9 Plus is a complete package with Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, and Firewall applications, providing a complete solution to protect your computer system against the latest online threats. link [kingsoftresearch.com]
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If you think Kingsoft is a tool, think again. That company is owned by Lei Jun, which is like China's Steve Jobs. That guy is creating a complete hardware/software solution not unlike the iPhone, by heavily modifying Android. They are offering their new cell phones at a very competitive price in continental China and it's been selling like hot cakes.
Here is a good article about the guy http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmontlake/2012/07/18/xiaomis-lei-jun-chinas-answer-to-steve-jobs/ [forbes.com]