你口袋里的间谍

路透社报道，安全研究人员周四称，名为Geinimi的病毒正通过中国Android第三方应用商店传播，是第一种有类似僵尸网络功能的Android恶意程序。

安全公司Lookout Mobile Security估计，被该病毒感染的手机数量在数万到数十万部之间。他们目前只在中国Android第三方应用商店中发现了含有该病毒的软件，而官方的Android电子市场似乎是安全的。恶意程序会收集用户的个人数据，然后发送到远程服务器，病毒联系的服务器域名包括www.widifu.com、www.udaore.com、www.frijd.com、www.islpast.com和www.piajesj.com。研究人员表示，该病毒尚未造成严重破坏，他们也不能确定病毒作者的意图何在。受感染程序包括《Monkey Jump 2》、《President vs. Aliens》、《City Defense》和《Baseball Superstars 2010》等视频游戏版本。

James Bond in Your Pocket: Cell Phones That Spy

by Ondrej Krehel on 11/18/2010

There are cell phone apps for everything these days, including as it turns out, spying. Yes, that’s right, spying—like 007 himself. And they’re not as hard to use as you may think.

Google recently banned an application from the Android marketplace thatforwards SMS text messages. The idea is simple: a message is sent to one phone, and without the user knowing it, it automatically forwards it to a second phone. It’s as easy to setup and install as Angry Birds, or any other cell phone app out there.

Other spying applications can track cell phones via GPS. The Android game Tap Snake acts as a shell for the app GPS Spy. Tap Snake sends GPS data every 15 minutes to a second phone with GPS Spy enabled. Though considered malware, the program is still widely available online.

There are some commercial packages that can seemingly do it all—record email messages and SMS sent from the phone and monitor the phone location via GPS. They run in the background, hidden from the user, and are marketed primarily toward parents wanting to keep track of their kids and employers suspicious of their employees.

The more sophisticated our phones get the more programming possibilities—good, bad and ugly. With all that’s happening, is it surprising that we’re seeing a rise in anti-malware and virus protection for smart phones? Probably not. It’s something to consider along with more generic security procedures such as password locks and application prompts for GPS and Internet access.

Image by shapeshift

Ondrej Krehel As chief information security officer at Identity Theft 911—the nation’s premier identity theft and data breach management, resolution and education service—Krehel manages a comprehensive information security program and leads computer forensic investigations. He helps businesses and individuals secure their information.