We’re used to hearing about virus and Malware warnings for our computers but now experts are warning mobile users to be careful when downloading games from the Internet to their mobile phones after new malicious Malware was discovered.
The first indication of a problem was a posting on the XDA-Developers forum by “smudgelab” which read “Really weird one this. Last night, I was woken by a repetitive voice telling me that “International dialling is not currently permitted from this device”.
“On checking the phone I found the following call history” and the poster goes on to list several international numbers.
This was in the middle of the night and with no input from the user. “It was very unnerving to see my phone has been trying to ring these without any input from me” said smudgelab.
“Virus/dialler maybe? Do these even exist for min mo phones?” the post continued.
As it turns out, apparently a Russian hacker had embedded a trojan inside the 3D first person shooter action game “3D Anti-Terrorist” manufacturered by Eijing Huike Technology in China, and then uploaded it to windows download sites.
According to security expert Graham Cluley, many people are now reporting that an unexpected feature of playing the 3D Anti-Terrorist action game is their phones are making expensive international calls to destinations such as the Dominican Republic, Somalia and Sao Tome and Principe, without their permission.
“Presumably they are hoping to skim some money from the expensive premium rate phone calls” said Cluley.
Cluley adds “It’s important to remember that Malware for mobile devices is still quite rare, particularly when compared to infections on conventional Windows computers. But what may surprise some is that there is nothing particularly revolutionary about criminals attempting to make money out of mobile Malware.
“For instance, back in 2004 we saw the Mosqit Trojan that could infect Nokia phones running Symbian, forcing affected devices to send text messages to premium rate numbers. Like this latest report, the hackers hid their Trojan inside a cracked version of a mobile phone game.
“Sophos detects the malware as Troj/Terdial-A, and advises all mobile phone users to exercise caution when downloading and installing new applications.”
You know what; I’m actually quite surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
