Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
Summary: Once a user scans the QR code, the code redirects them to a site that will install a Trojan on their Android smart phones.
The growing popularity of Quick Response (QR codes) on smart phones has officially become a new distribution vehicle for malware on Android devices.
According to security researchers at Kaspersky Lab (important disclosure: my employer), hackers are are using QR codes posted on web sites to redirect smart phones to other sites hosting an Android trojan.
Once a user scans the QR code (using special apps), the code redirects them to a site that will install a Trojan on their phones.
Once installed, the Trojan will send a number of SMS messages to premium-rate numbers, which will end up costing the victim some money, depending on how quickly she is able to find and remove the Trojan.
Kaspersky's Denis Maslennikov reports that the malware itself is a Trojanized Jimm application (mobile ICQ client) which sends several SMS messages to premium rate number 2476 (US$6.00 each).
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RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
the perpetrators
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
What is the OS behind Android?
Linux sure is a poor OS when it comes to security.
Check out kernel.org. The site was easily taken down by hackers and weeks later, still isn't back up.
Android is the only modern mobile OS to be plagued by malware. iOS isn't. WP7 isn't. BlackBerry isn't. Only the Linux powered Android is so bad that users have to be terrified of even taking a picture of a QR code.
I know that this has made me never want to run Linux.
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
Android has no relation to the security of Linux. The Linux kernel is used in Android, but the system has been opened up for phone use. It's not true Linux. The hack on kernel.org has more to do with human error than any security issue of Linux (if you have the security but don't set it right, you're in trouble).
Bottom line, no system is proof against determined hackers. Always use good Internet practices and an antivirus program. Personally, I use AVG on my Android phone.
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
To summarize your post
1. iOS is secure because the ecosystem is secure. Sounds good to me (I own an iPhone and an iPad partially because of this advantage).
2. WP7 isn't secure but it never gets hacked because it has security through obscurity. Interesting because the Linux fanboys do not accept this as an argument for why Desktop Linux is so rarely targeted by trojans.
3. Android is not Linux when it comes to security reputation. However, Android is Linux when it comes to measuring the popularity of Linux.
4. When the owners of the Linux kernel can't secure their Linux servers, that is just human error. When some poor amateur IIS website operator can't secure their servers, that is proof of how Windows has no security.
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
I have to give NCWeber props for [b]Bottom line, no system is proof against determined hackers. Always use good Internet practices and an antivirus program[/b] - there a few Mac fanbois and even fewer Linux fanbois that would even think those words - perhaps it's deemed to be blasphemy? - much less put them in a post. He seems to be one of the few Linux fans who is not a SJVN sheep.
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
I feel the same way about the minimized links, because you have no way of knowing where they are actually going.
Lookout Protect
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
I did just to check it out, and to use Bing Vision some more.
I like how Bing Vision works
lets you know what it is, and lets you decide to go there or not.
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware
Android is malware.
RE: Hackers using QR codes to push Android malware