"SMSZombie" Malware Infects 500,000 Android Users In China 116
wiredmikey writes "Researchers have recently discovered a new sophisticated and resilient mobile threat targeting Android phones that is said to have infected about 500,000 devices, mainly in China. Called 'SMSZombie,' the malware is stubborn and hard to remove, but users outside of China have little to worry about with this latest discovery. The prime function of the mobile malware is to exploit a vulnerability in the mobile payment system used by China Mobile, making it of little value to the fraudsters outside of China. The malware takes advantage of a vulnerability in the China Mobile SMS Payment process to generate unauthorized payments to premium service providers, and can also remotely control the infected device. It has been spread via wallpaper apps that sport provocative titles and nude photos, and can only be removed using a lengthy process beyond the skills of a typical android user."
Re:"Walled garden"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is quite lucky that that nobody ever weaponized anything back in the good old days of Jailbreakme... In-browser TIFF exploit leading to full root access just by loading a web page.
Google, of course, is similarly lucky that nobody bothered to do anything wacky during the "yeah, everything you type gets silently dumped to a root shell, why do you ask?" period in early android...
Punchline is, the state of 'mobile' security(really, security in general) is pretty fucking dire, and the current frenzy to tie as many payment systems as possible to mobile phones is complete insanity, except from the perspective of the bottom lines of the respective payment processors, naturally.
Re:"Walled garden"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon apparently still needs to learn this, given the recent Kindle Touch remote root exploit [makeuseof.com].
Chinese software (Score:1)
I am not surprised at all by the news that it's the bug in the Chinese sms payment system software that provides the vulnerability
The quality, or rather, the lack of it, of Chinese software is a given
Almost all software that were written by Chinese, that I've come across, - no matter which platform the software run on, - are very poorly constructed, they are not intuitive, and very very buggy
zomg (Score:2)
Re:"Walled garden"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen a $200 box with a patent sell for $50,000+ because the "value" was $50,000 plus, but the patent was obvious and not novel (It was essentially signal cancellation for an expensive piece of communications gear, with court cases about it because two companies patented the same thing at the same time, both valid because the patent office isn't technical enough and the filing periods overlapped so neither was granted before the other was filed, so not previous art for the other).
Re: (Score:2)
Look at Discover card. It was backed by Sears, pushed with millions, then Sears went bankrupt. Coincidence? I think so, but I don't have visibility into their books to see if pushing a new option through was expensive enough to bankrupt one of the country's largest retailers. I just know I don't have the money to push it through.
Of course, your "Marxist Economics" model doesn't work in the real world: people aren't just willing to pay "what the market will bear" well beyond a "small%" profit but it's also THE ONLY WAY to fund advanced technology development of any kind.
Wait, "Free Market Capitalism" is Mar
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure I agree with you, at least for iOS. Security was dire around v1.0, but now we're at 5.x going on 6.x and a lot has changed.
iOS is definitely more secure than Mac/Windows/Ubuntu.
There is always room for improvement, but iOS has sandboxing and code signing and full disk encryption with a hardware only encryption key derrivation algorithm, that is deliberately slow, providing a private key that can be erased remotely or after a few failed decryption attempts.
Re: (Score:1)
Except you can jailbreak it. This means all bets are off. You can arbitrarily disable one or all of those aforementioned features -- and breaking a 10,000 combination code is a joke for most medium to high end computers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
FYI:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/integration/
Data Protection
To protect all data at rest, iPhone features built-in hardware encryption using AES 256-bit encoding. Building on the hardware encryption capabilities of iPhone, email messages and attachments stored on the device can be further secured by using Data Protection. Data Protection uses a user’s device passcode to generate a strong encryption key. This key prevents data from being accessed when the device is locked, ensuring that critical
Re: (Score:3)
Re:"Walled garden"? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the context of this article, it's probably worth noting that(even if the iPhone feature described works exactly as advertised) it is aimed at mitigating a completely different class of attack.
Disk encryption setups aim to protect a lost or stolen device, in the physical custody of the attacker, from revealing whatever information is on the disk. They have no effect when the device is on and operating under the user's credentials(transparency is considered a feature).
This attack in China is an attack on a live system, using the credentials of the user(or higher) to perform malicious operations as them. Even if the disk were encrypted in a suitably robust way, it'd be happily handing over whatever this bug asked for.
Re: (Score:2)
My understanding [gizmodo.com] is there is in fact full encryption of the contents of the iPhone, i.e. you can't access the data without knowing the key.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Someone should tell these people: http://www.elcomsoft.com/iphone-forensic-toolkit.html [elcomsoft.com]
From your linked site:
"Enhanced Forensic Access to iPhone/iPad/iPod Devices running iOS 4"
[...]
Protected file system dumps can be extracted from iPhone devices equipped with on-board hardware encryption and running iOS 4.x. Supported devices include iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 (both GSM and CDMA models), first-gen iPad, and latest releases of iPod Touch (3rd and 4th generation).
In other words, they don't support the latest-generation iPhone (4S) or iOS (5), nor the last two generations of iPad. According to Apple, as of June 2012 almost 80% of the 365 million iOS devices sold had been upgraded to iOS5 [slashgear.com].
Maybe it works unofficially on these, but iOS5 and the iPhone 4S have been out for almost a year now. I imagine the ability to break into these would be a significant product feature they'd want to promote--if they had it.
Sophisticated? (Score:2, Interesting)
The "Wallpaper" trojan has to get administrative priviledges from the user. Social engineering trick.
Then it downloads the malicious code. Not impressed.
Finally, it monitors keystrokes. Key logger anyone?
Is it just me, or does the company (TrustGo) that called this malware "Sophisticated" have an ulterior motive? Care to purchase a mobile security product?
http://www.trustgo.com/en/
Re: (Score:1)
Wow, Another cowardly anonymous schmuck Apple fanboy hates on Android...and this one got first post.
Re:"Walled garden"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry guys, but he's got a point. The attack vector here is an app that people voluntarily run, and the walled garden has been effective against that. Are there other vectors? Yeah. But that doesn't mean that his point about this one vector is wrong...it's not wrong at all. It took 5 years for the first malicious app to slip past Apple, and even then, the nature of how it all works meant Apple could remove it from everyone's iPhone with a single update. Android can't boast the same, either on the prevention or the remediation side. I don't hold any hate for either side, but this is just simple truth we're talking here. There have been scores of trojaned Android apps, and many for jailbroken iPhones as well...but only one, ever, for standard iPhones.
Re: (Score:1)
"Researchers at Kaspersky have discovered an app called “Find and Call” in Apple’s iOS App Store, Forbes noted on Thursday. The malicious app masquerades as a tool for simplifying contact lists but it instead uploads a user’s full contact list to a remote server and proceeds to send SMS and email spam to every person in the list."
Re: (Score:3)
Yep. That is the one malicious app.
Re: (Score:1)
- Benjamin Franklin
Re: (Score:1)
It took 5 years for the first malicious app to slip past Apple, and even then, the nature of how it all works meant Apple could remove it from everyone's iPhone with a single update.
Erm, wrong.
They've been able to sneak things passed the GateKeeper for at least 2 years now.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/apple-approves-pulls-flashlight-app-with-hidden-tethering-mode/ [wired.com]
This is just the one we know of.
Re: (Score:2)
A tethering app is not malware. It's software that the users wanted, but the cell phone companies didn't want. And it's "past," not "passed."
Re: (Score:1)
It's still malware. It said it was a flashlight and it had code to do something completely different. Malware that researchers launch to clean up other malware is still malware.
Ultimately, it doesn't even matter if it is. It just proves that the so-called "review" can only detect the stupidly obvious attempts at malware. Any malware or spyware with a delayed payload will make it through perfectly fine.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think you understand what a tethering app really is. It's not something that researches launch to clean up other malware. It's something that allowed you to use your iPhone as a hotspot, before any of the cellular providers had permitted it (at all). Back in the days when unlimited data plans for iPhones were somewhat common, this was seen as a problem by the cellular providers. People didn't download the flashlight app and say "Ah, surprise! My phone is doing something malicious!" Nothing mal
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article:
"According to TrustGo, the malware is being spread through online forums and has been found in several packages on China’s largest mobile app marketplace, GFan"
Better revise your "attack vector" description.
Most Android users only use Google Play Store, which not only is not known to be affected by this malware, it also has the ability to remove it from users' phones after the fact - so you're wrong there too.
You even admitted there is malware for 'jailbroken' iphones, which would be
Re: (Score:2)
Did you even read my post? I could be accused of being an Android fanboy, but definitely not an Apple one.
I worded my post so as to be as fair as possible to both sides, while correcting the previous post.
Re: (Score:1)
There's only one that you know of. Keep repeating the lie. Maybe it'll come true one day, if you wish upon a star. LOL
Just because researchers can't bulk-download even free applications and are not permitted to do so on-device, it makes it hard for anyone to say if any application is malicious.
The ones that you see are just lucky guesses, someone actually bothered looking as to what it did, or come out with it themselves (in the case of Charlie Miller).
You think their review does jack and shit to people w
Re: (Score:3)
Did you read the article? You download the app from whatever store, then it downloads a second file which it then installs as a 'driver' which does 'bad things'. The user is prompted if they want to install it, but the box just reappears if you hit no. That would be hard to detect from which ever store it was posted to.
Obviously the fact that a downloaded wallpaper can install this 'driver' is wrong and needs to be looked at.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're willing to open your front door and let any stranger in your house or loan then the keys to your car withing first doing a background check then sure, you deserve to have your shit stolen.
I on the other hand prefer having the freedom to do MORE with my Android phone. I use to have an iPhone and will never go back to that POS locked down for a baby device. A phone IS a computer and you treat it the same. You don't just go installing anything and everything on your computer do you?
Re: (Score:1)
For all the bitching I hear from FSF weenies about Apple, those of us who buy their products don't have to put up with this shit.
That's because the "Walled garden" system allows Apple to usually be tight-lipped about any IPhone vulnerabilities whereas Android flaws are found by the developer community and made public. If you are comfortable with not knowing about your phones vulnerabilities, then fine...Ignorance is bliss. BUT...occasionally, someone outside Apple finds an IOS vulnerability like THIS very recent one involving SMS spoofing:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/261068/iphone_flaw_allows_sms_spoofing_says_hacker.html
Oops no
Re:"Lengthy Process" (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to removing it from device administrators. Which is like 2 actual steps. It's very tame compared to what it _could_ take.
Re: (Score:3)
In addition to removing it from device administrators. Which is like 2 actual steps. It's very tame compared to what it _could_ take.
Yes, since they're a "security" company, they're taking the Norton approach and making the instructions as scary and as lengthy as they could make them.
First of all, if the device is under a device administrators' control, I doubt very much that the phone would have gotten infected in the first place. And second of all, I can understand the normal Chinese grandma not understanding the instructions:
"Just uninstall the 'naked girls' application, there is nothing more to it than that. "
But at the very least, t
Important (Score:2)
In addition to removing it from device administrators. Which is like 2 actual steps. It's very tame compared to what it _could_ take.
Does anyone have a decent remote kit for actually delousing Android phones? I've tried LogMeIn Rescue but the only thing their (premium, $79,- mo) mobile access for Rescue (which is £550 per user or so)...
The only thing this "cloud" application supports for Android is the ability to change network settings (which might be useful for reconfiguring devices, but hardly for rescuing them), and to set MMS settings.
Way to fail at that, LogMeIn. Fortunately, they let you trial it first, and I *did* end up bu
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Given how little customization there is during a typical phone's OS install process(during the image build process, yes, the image install process, not so much), "just reflash it" actually counts as fairly noob-friendly, if somewhat tedious, advice.
Unless the bootloader is shot, or the vendor has a hostile or nonexistent reflash process, it's pretty much just a matter of waiting while a nontrivial chunk of the phone's flash gets overwritten...
SMSJiangshi (Score:2)
Obvious scam (Score:3)
wallpaper apps that sport provocative titles and nude photos
How can someone see that and not realize its gotta be a scam?
Probably just as effective as putting up a "idiots click here please".
The ability to be scammed is hardly limited to senior citizens.
Re:Obvious scam (Score:5, Interesting)
You would be surprised how easy it would be to get stung by this by an average user [1].
A couple months ago, I was browsing for a couple games. Looked at the game, and it demanded every right under the sun. Of course, it didn't get the second install click.
However, it was a game with an icon that was the logo for a popular game show, so it looked "legit" enough to a user. Most Android users are not the top tier IT people who know exactly what an app should and should not be doing. They tend to see an app, tap it, and go from there.
All and all, the Android permissions are working fine. The app couldn't do much to hide in the system, so someone removing the device admin and then the app resulted in a cleanup. Had the app had root, it could insert itself into a lot more places.
The problem is that whomever is the curator of the app store [2] in question. There really needs to be at least two tiers with some warning about entering into Mordor for the second tier. Android needs to have default stores like Amazon's that apps are vetted to a strict code before they hit the store. Not just checked with a scanner like the Bouncer, but put up to a higher tier of rules than the free-for-all of the present Google Play store. The reason for the higher standard is to minimize the "developer banned at 9:00, app is back in the store at 10:00 under a different name", which was not uncommon.
Android is great (and it can be argued that the OS is more secure than iOS when compared side to side [3]); it just needs a beefy gatekeeper enforcing a proper dress code. iOS's security would be significantly weakened without an active gatekeeper, and Apple has done a good job at keeping the nasties out of the Apple ecosystem.
[1]: The Dancing Bunnies "hole" has defeated many security systems.
[2]: I wasn't sure if it is Google or what, so using "app store" as a generic term. App Store would likely mean Apple's offering.
[3]: iOS depends on the "jail" system completely. A rooted Android device does not lessen any security, unless the user decides to let an app through via "Superuser" that shouldn't have root.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You would be surprised how easy it would be to get stung by this by an average user [1].
A couple months ago, I was browsing for a couple games. Looked at the game, and it demanded every right under the sun. Of course, it didn't get the second install click.
However, it was a game with an icon that was the logo for a popular game show, so it looked "legit" enough to a user. Most Android users are not the top tier IT people who know exactly what an app should and should not be doing. They tend to see an app, tap it, and go from there.
Most users actually look at the number of stars and the number of downloads, and sometimes even read the reviews when the thing doesn't have a solid rating. Find me just one example of a WallPaper app, or a shady game, that hasn't been damaged in its star ratings and in its user reviews by having permissions that required access to the SMS functionality.
In addition to that, the Google Play store also looks at the ratings and the number of installs, when deciding to display search results, thus reducing the
Re: (Score:2)
I am leery about reviews. The app I mentioned had five stars, and a ton of positive reviews. However, if you looked at the reviews, they were stuff like "Game play great!" [sic], or other pithy, fake reviews. One had to dig through a ton of the fake positives in order to find the one star "SMS spammer" items.
Re: (Score:2)
I will assume the app and reviews were on an app store or traditional aggregation website. It didn't have the ability to filter or sort by critical ratings first?
Re: (Score:2)
I am leery about reviews. The app I mentioned had five stars, and a ton of positive reviews. However, if you looked at the reviews, they were stuff like "Game play great!" [sic], or other pithy, fake reviews. One had to dig through a ton of the fake positives in order to find the one star "SMS spammer" items.
It sounds like you were on a site like GetJar [getjar.com]. If you notice, GetJar has iPhone applications as well. And if you're willing to take the extra steps required to leave the walled garden of your OS, whether it's Android or iOS, it's ultimately your responsibility if you decide to use a badly run online App Store after that.
Re: (Score:3)
Then there is the side-effect of ads meaning that _EVERY_ app (well, the majority) has all the permissions it needs to start scanning your network at 3AM, and reporting what it finds back to china.
Fixing this would not be that involved, but it would mean that there is some cost.
Devs would need to write a one-line explanation for every permission.
You'd need to have someone slightly clueful to see if all the permissions are in fact required for the features mentioned.
This is around a 2 minute task for most ap
iOS more secure for most users (Score:1)
Android is great (and it can be argued that the OS is more secure than iOS when compared side to side [3])
The Android security system itself is strong enough, but the inherent flaw is that a user is asked for permissions for everything all up front. This is terrible as novice users simply cannot really tell what they are being asked to do, and even experienced users may think some particular permission in theoretically needed.
On iOS, permissions are asked in context, at the time the service needing permiss
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is an app for Android called LBE Privacy Guard which goes exactly that, where the app thinks it has the perms it wants... but doesn't.
There is a similar app for jailbroken iPhones called PMP (Protect My Privacy). If an unauthorized app wants contacts, PMP will give gibberish, same with music. That way, the app thinks it is having a field day uploading data.
Re: (Score:1)
Very true. However, a lot of root exploits use a procedure where one uses ADB in debug mode, pushes a binary onto the machine, said binary manages to get root, then you subsequently push the Superuser APK and the su binary into place. Few apps tend to have access to anything outside the Dalvik VM, much less the ability to run native ARM code on the Linux kernel.
Definitely not disagreeing with you, as there are one click roots that are apps downloaded, but generally, for an app to get outside its privs, it
Length process!? (Score:2)
Besides that, maybe they shouldn't choose "YES" when explicitly prompted for device administrator permissions for the app?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
yes. you obviously have not worked with end users. most people don't give a shit about how things work, as long as it works.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
yeah you screwed up because you took the lazy anti-intellectual route. here's how you can do better next time".
you'd explain that they should get an iphone next time. if they don't want to invest the time in securing an operating system, then get an operating system that doesn't requrie any invesemtnt.
Re: (Score:2)
Who needs malware when the parent company will happily factory reset / wipe all your devices in one shot, without any user intervention?
Do you think the average user has any reason to worry about that all? Do you think the average user worries about whether Apple will pull some dirty trick? The average user knows better than you: he knows that Apple has no plans to do that on a mass scale; they'd be incredibly stupid to do so and it would serve no purpose.
You're coming from an ownership point of view: "I own my device, I want to do whatever I want with it, and prevent anyone, including the parent company." That's fine, I feel the same way a
So... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It's Zombies and Androids! Run!
Re: (Score:2)
Still, it doesn't sound too bad. What could possibly go wrong?
Lengthy Process? (Score:5, Funny)
The "lengthy process" consists of:
Go to System Settings >> Location and Security >> Select Device Administrators
Remove "Android System Service"
Go to System Settings >> Applications >> Manage Applications >> Android System Service
Choose "Uninstall"
OMG!!!
4 steps!!!!!! It's so complicated!!!!!!!!
Steps within steps. (Think IKEA.) (Score:2)
There are two steps, where each step itself has steps. The concept of steps within steps should be familiar from assembling flat-pack furniture, where the steps to put the cams and screws into one shelf are often combined as inner steps into one outer step, or from the Bible where each book is made of chapters and each chapter made of verses. This way, the user knows how far along he is.
Part 1: Deactivate trojan's administrative privilege (6 taps)
1. Open Settings. 2. Open Location and Security. 3. Open
Re: (Score:1)
If you think in terms of the type of person who would get infected with this to begin with, then unfortunately yes, it is complicated.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you please type slower?
I'm confused,
I was going to... (Score:3)
...post a lenghty rant about miscoceptions of Android users, and quote the OP too. Unfortunately, I'm posting from an Android device and do not posess such skills.
huh? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on whether you mean follow a script or just do it. My mother-in-law could follow the 10 screenshots but she could not independently come up with those steps. The fact that the person granted the permissions leads me to believe they may not have the technical expertise to undo their choices.
Seriously... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
1. Make a case for an iPhone with 'This is not an iPhone' printed on it.
2. Load phone with 'Not an iPhone' skin.
3. Sell next to Apple stores with a sign that reads 'Not iPhones'.
4. Profit !!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
When there is an alternative which is free, works on all mobile phones regardless of carrier/manufacturer, and is (almost) instant.
Installed via 'some guys blog' (Score:2)
GFan is probably bad enough, but Installing an application from some random-ass website is just asking for it.
FTFA: "the malware is being spread through online forums and has been found in several packages on Chinaâ(TM)s largest mobile app marketplace, GFan."
Click the next button (Score:1)
"...beyond the skills of a typical android user."
It's 5 steps long, and at least one of those steps is essentially CTNB (click the Next button)
Ohhh...
I see what you did there.
Take better care next time. (Score:1)
Choosing your parents.
Lackwit.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
In a story about fraud on the Android platform someone points out that Android is open to fraud. Personally, I think it was a play on words and not a technical comment. Either way, I don't think the word troll means what you think it means. If you thought they were serious you could have explained why they were wrong and help keep this a useful technical forum. And I want a pony.
Re: (Score:1)
My guess is that you did not look for it?
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/08/17/2057207/iphone-bug-allows-sms-spoofing [slashdot.org]