- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
Security experts from Chinese security firm Cheetah Mobile say that an Android trojan that appeared in the summer of 2014 has exploded in terms of activity, as they're seeing millions of new smartphones infected with this threat every day.
While in its early life this virus was barely making a difference, the trojan, named Hummer, has been on a rising trend ever since the summer of 2015, with the number of daily infections growing each month.
At its peak period, in the first months of the year, Hummer was infecting around 1.6 million new users on a daily basis. Even if the numbers have gone down in recent months, the trojan is still infecting one million new devices per day.
Hummer averaged 1.2M new infections per day since the start of 2016
Since the start of 2016, on average, Hummer has achieved 1,187,722 new infections per day, which is almost double its closest competitor, the GhostPush malware, which has a daily infection rate of 691,079 new devices.
Hummer is part of a new class of Android malware that comes equipped with rooting exploits in order to gain administrative privileges on the infected device without needing to beg users for permissions.
Trend Micro detected a similar threat called Godless, which came with rooting exploits that were effective against 90 percent of all Android devices on the market today.
Currently, it appears that crooks are using Hummer as an entry point on infected devices. Once the trojan manages to contaminate and root a device, crooks will push adware and unwanted apps to the user's phones, as part of affiliate programs.
Cheetah Mobile estimates that if the crooks pushed at least one app to each new device they infect each day, based on the current rate of new infections (1 million) and an average payout of $0.50 per each new app install in affiliate programs, the crooks would be making at least $500,000 per day.
If accurate, this estimation dwarfs anything that ransomware, banking trojans, or malvertisers would be making in a single day, at any time.
Read more: Chinese Hackers Make $500,000 per Day from New Hummer Android Malware
While in its early life this virus was barely making a difference, the trojan, named Hummer, has been on a rising trend ever since the summer of 2015, with the number of daily infections growing each month.
At its peak period, in the first months of the year, Hummer was infecting around 1.6 million new users on a daily basis. Even if the numbers have gone down in recent months, the trojan is still infecting one million new devices per day.
Hummer averaged 1.2M new infections per day since the start of 2016
Since the start of 2016, on average, Hummer has achieved 1,187,722 new infections per day, which is almost double its closest competitor, the GhostPush malware, which has a daily infection rate of 691,079 new devices.
Hummer is part of a new class of Android malware that comes equipped with rooting exploits in order to gain administrative privileges on the infected device without needing to beg users for permissions.
Trend Micro detected a similar threat called Godless, which came with rooting exploits that were effective against 90 percent of all Android devices on the market today.
Currently, it appears that crooks are using Hummer as an entry point on infected devices. Once the trojan manages to contaminate and root a device, crooks will push adware and unwanted apps to the user's phones, as part of affiliate programs.
Cheetah Mobile estimates that if the crooks pushed at least one app to each new device they infect each day, based on the current rate of new infections (1 million) and an average payout of $0.50 per each new app install in affiliate programs, the crooks would be making at least $500,000 per day.
If accurate, this estimation dwarfs anything that ransomware, banking trojans, or malvertisers would be making in a single day, at any time.
Read more: Chinese Hackers Make $500,000 per Day from New Hummer Android Malware
