Android App Been Hit by Malicious Data
An Android app distributed by Google have been hit by malicious data and collecting individual data of millions of users then sent to China servers.
Confirming Apple’s uniquely hard stance on mobile protection in the iPhone App Store. The app “picks up a user’s browsing history, text messages, your phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and even your voice mail password. It sends the data to a web site, imnet.us. That site is evidently owned by someone in Shenzhen, China,” the report noted.
The data theft was only discovered afterward, through forensics performed by mobile security firm named Lookout which sells virus and malware protection software for Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. The problem was announced at the Black Hat security conference being held in Las Vegas.
The issue recalls a recent AT&T website leak that could hypothetically have enabled a malicious hacker to access 144 thousand of iPad 3G user’s email addresses.
However, the Android app data theft was actually perpetrated by malicious hackers and not just demonstrated by researchers, it involves far more sensitive data, and affected far more victims by more than an order of magnitude.
Exploitable vulnerabilities in the iOS platform have been reported elsewhere, including the Safari browser, but crafting a malicious attack via the browser requires luring users to a malicious site rather than simply distributing a bad app that appears to be useful and genuine.
Lookout chief executive John Hering said in the report that “he believes both Google and Apple are on top of policing their app stores, particularly when there are known malware problems with apps,” but the report noted it’s “unclear what happens” when apps don’t actually do what they represent.
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Posted by daler
on Jul 29 2010. Filed under Featured Technologies, Mobile.
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