Published in Mobiles

Android hit by scams

by on02 January 2012



Fake anti-virus programs popular


Kaspersky Lab researcher Denis Maslennikov says that scammers are targeting Android mobile devices with similar offers of phony virus scans and bogus antivirus software.

Writing on the Securelist blog, Maslennikov says that Web searches for popular mobile applications have turned up scam Web sites offering "free" virus scans of mobile devices, including Android. The technique is the same as those which annoyed Microsoft Windows users. They offer free scans while loading your device with trojans.

"Both web pages claim that the user’s device might be infected and that somebody has access to personal data and then will ask the user to check his or her device for malware," Maslennikov said.

Of course a scan of the device returns "positive" results and encourages the mobile device user to "activate" security protections on their device by clicking on a link in the scan results. If you do that you get the Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS. Scavir for Android to play with.

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