Posted: 8/10/2010 8:25:23 AM EDT
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First Android Trojan Sends SMS Messages to “Premium Numbers”
by John Biggs on August 10, 2010 
Have you ever wondered who SMSes porn and astrology lines at $9.99 per message? Your phone! A new Trojan for Android adds a small Android extension that sends SMS messages to “premium numbers,” charging the users a few dollars per message. Kaspersky has identified it as Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a and it only works on Russian networks. It doesn’t seem like the brightest or most dangerous Trojan ever written – you obviously have to download it yourself, probably as part of another package – but it’s still pretty scary stuff, especially if you have no interest in astrology. http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/08/10/first-android-trojan-sends-sms-messages-to-premium-numbers/ Better go get yourself a virus scanner....hahahahahahahaha LOL |
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Quoted: On a related note- Is purchasing an anti-virus app for my evo recommended? If so, which one? Kaspersky has a mobile anti-v program you can download and try as a trail for free. http://usa.kaspersky.com/trials/home-users/mobile-security/ |
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" It doesn’t seem like the brightest or most dangerous Trojan ever written – you obviously have to download it yourself" I didn't write the article...thank God. And it only works.... on Russian networks. I'll start worrying about this virus... at some undetermined point in the future. 
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First our computers, now our phones too? Are they ever going to make something that is actually secure? my question is... who are the retards writing that crap Don't know, but it is true. Just poorly worded, that's all. I can't believe that there are actually virus scanners for phones now. All though, it really doesn't shock me. |
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First our computers, now our phones too? Are they ever going to make something that is actually secure? You work at an Apple store don't you? LOL, no but I do own an Iphone 4. I am not trying to bash Android. iOS 4 has some major flaws that make the Iphone, Ipad, and Ipods very vulnerable to attack. It just simply amazes me that we have finally come to a point to where we need to protect our phones now from hackers. |
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"Trojan" and "virus" are different things.
A trojan is a program which does something bad which you personally installed and ran. A virus is a program that can install itself and run without your knowledge or permission. The program described by the OP is a "trojan", not a "trojan virus". |
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"Trojan" and "virus" are different things. A trojan is a program which does something bad which you personally installed and ran. A virus is a program that can install itself and run without your knowledge or permission. The program described by the OP is a "trojan", not a "trojan virus". But couldn't it be tied to an app that you download with out your knowledge? |
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First our computers, now our phones too? Are they ever going to make something that is actually secure? 
That is impossible. As long as humans can write software, they can also write software to destroy software. It's a matter of staying ahead of the bad guys. |
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On a related note- Is purchasing an anti-virus app for my evo recommended? If so, which one? Kaspersky has a mobile anti-v program you can download and try as a trail for free. http://usa.kaspersky.com/trials/home-users/mobile-security/ Interesting enough it was Kapersky who found this trojan.... I think it's a Kapersky made trojan to promote their mobile security. |
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On a related note- Is purchasing an anti-virus app for my evo recommended? If so, which one? Kaspersky has a mobile anti-v program you can download and try as a trail for free. http://usa.kaspersky.com/trials/home-users/mobile-security/ Interesting enough it was Kapersky who found this trojan.... I think it's a Kapersky made trojan to promote their mobile security. I imagine most of them are. Back when hacking satellites was common, i always figured the guys that wrote the security code also wrote the hack since it was out within hours of an upgrade. |
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On a related note- Is purchasing an anti-virus app for my evo recommended? If so, which one? Kaspersky has a mobile anti-v program you can download and try as a trail for free. http://usa.kaspersky.com/trials/home-users/mobile-security/ Interesting enough it was Kapersky who found this trojan.... I think it's a Kapersky made trojan to promote their mobile security. While job security is always good, i doubt it. |
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"Trojan" and "virus" are different things. A trojan is a program which does something bad which you personally installed and ran. A virus is a program that can install itself and run without your knowledge or permission. The program described by the OP is a "trojan", not a "trojan virus". But couldn't it be tied to an app that you download with out your knowledge? Yes. Actually I guess my explanation does suck. I shall give myself numerous lashes later. Let me try again. Trojan: A program that you think does something helpful, like display baseball scores, but actually does something harmful, like delete all the MP3 files on your computer. Anyone with any programming knowledge can very easily write a trojan. Virus: A program that, when run, attaches itself to other programs on your computer so that anyone who runs them will get the virus. For example, you run the program to display baseball scores and it searches your hard drive and infects your minesweeper game too. Later, you upload your minesweeper game to a friend and now he has the virus even though he never ran that baseball program that it originally came from. It's a "virus" because it spreads. A virus often has a payload of a trojan (it spreads itself AND does something harmful) but some viruses just spread and never do anything. They are significantly harder to write than trojans. Worm: A program that can find holes in operating systems and networks to spread themselves to other computers simply by virtue of being connected on the network. In this case, your computer just has to be online. You don't have to download or run anything to get a worm. These are rare, these days, but they were all the rage some years back, before Microsoft started fixing the holes. The subtle difference is that with a trojan, all you need to do is avoid running that one program and you will never get hit by it. With a virus, anything you run can potentially be infected due to the way it spreads to other programs. So to my mind, a "trojan" for the Android is almost non-news. Android users will have to learn what PC users have (hopefully) known for a long time, which is "trust the author of the program or don't run it". A virus would be much worse because it would mean that even if you trust your source and trust the author, the program could be infected with a trojan without the knowledge of the source or author. In fact, I don't know if Android users share programs anyway so I'm not sure how a virus on an Android would have any way to spread. |
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Download carefully. Never grab "Just In"/New stuff. At each app, look at what it is going to access, and ask if the features of the app are worth it. ASSUME all apps will steal your info, and you'll be fine. I keep fluff-stuff in my contacts, only nicknames, as well as some bogus entries and honeypot email addys, the email pretty much lets me know if something "got out", especially with desktop Non-GPL "Free" apps. |