“When Panda Security found malware on a brand new Android-based Vodafone HTC Magic earlier this month, Vodafone said it was an ‘isolated local incident,'” Elinor Mills reports for CNET.
“Now, a second phone has been found harboring malware, including a program that turns infected machines into zombies as part of the Mariposa credit card and bank log-in-stealing botnet, according to Spain-based PandaLabs,” Mills reports. “After hearing about PandaLabs’ discovery, an employee at another Spanish security company, S21Sec, checked his recently-acquired HTC Magic and found the Mariposa malware lurking on it.”
Mills reports, “PandaLabs connected the S21Sec employee’s microSD card to his PC and found that the smartphone was loaded with the malware on March 1, more than a week before he had received the phone from Vodafone.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again: Ah, the joys of an “open” (sort of) platform. By the way, there are currently tens of millions more iPhone OS devices than there are Android devices in the world today, yet Android is the one that’s infected. The “security via obscurity” argument fails yet again.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Richard V.” for the heads up.]
When will this world get it to STOP using garbage phones and use iPhones?
Looks like Nexus One is next.
Just one of the many innovations that HTC brings to their line of phones.
there goes obscurity through security once more…
haha… i meant…
securtity through obscurity
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Look, this only news on the Mac sites. The PC bozos have accepted the presence of malware on their stuff as normal.
I feel pitty for these idiots.
It seems that the inability to use the iPhone as a removable media (the way you can with most iPods) has its benefits. The malware in question was simply copied to the included micro-SD card. As soon as an Android phone is connected to a PC, the card automatically mounts as a volume (or, in Windows jargon, appears as an E: drive). Autorun.exe makes sure malware is immediately copied onto that PC and launched to begin its sinister deed.
There is something to be said about the walled garden, no-volume-mounting concept of the iPhone.
@Predrag: Also shows the benefits of using only a Mac to sync your phones; that autorun.exe file will do nothing on a Mac if I assume correctly.
The question is where the malware originated — was this a factory issue regarding a brand new phone, or a store issue with a refurbished phone that they may have been trying to pass off as new?
Here’s a good example of why Apple screens there apps before setting them free in there App store. If not there probably would have had something like this happen as well.
People bitch about how Apple is strict with there screening process yet how would you like a virus on your phone and have to erase all the data, and you didn’t have a backup. I think this is one good reason to smile with how Apple does things, to keep us users safe!
ANDROID FAIL.
Uncle Owen, This R2 unit has a bad Motivator!
“Hey, what are you trying to push on us?”
Will Google now reach into people’s phones to delete this malware, or will they recommend a malware removal program on the app store?
Allow me, it’s not the phones that are infected, the microsd cards come with free virus that infects POS pc machines.
But kudos on the never ending bashing of anything non-apple and the dodgy looking spam filled website.
a-HA…….a-HA……a-HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!