New contacts stealing Android malware spotted in the wild

Security researchers from NQ Mobile’s Security Research Center have detected a new Android malware that silently steals the contacts of infected devices, and sends them back to the malicious attackers.
The malware, dubbed FireLeaker, accesses the device's system database file, retrieves data such as phone numbers, the phone's IMEI, as well as related emails, and silently uploads it to a web server managed by the cybercriminals behind it.
Why would a cybercriminal want to harvest a mobile device's contact list? Because that's how they set up for the foundations for an upcoming SMS spam campaign. Next to personally using the stolen data for sending SMS spam, they will also sell access to the database, which will be later on incorporated in managed SMS spam service, offering the ability to send SMS spam using an already harvested database of mobile numbers.

Find out more about Dancho Danchev at his LinkedIn profile.