- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
Popular mobile games such as Monkey Jump are being illegally copied and repackaged with code designed to steal personal information or perform other malicious functions, according to a study due to be released soon from Lookout Mobile Security.
Although companies such as Google and Apple have dedicated marketplaces for applications that have been approved, there are an increasing number of third party sites for downloading applications, said John Hering, CEO of Lookout Mobile Security, on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
As part of its study, called the App Genome Project, Lookout examined applications in two alternative Android application marketplaces aimed at Chinese speakers. Eleven percent of the applications were merely clones of legitimate applications stuffed with other code, some of which have the potential to be malware, Hering said.
One of the most commonly cloned applications is Monkey Jump, Hering said. It isn't immediately clear what some of the code does in those tampered-with applications, but Hering said there are a few possibilities, such as creating a botnet or sending text messages to premium rate numbers.
Other possibilities are that the applications are then used to sign up to advertising schemes, with the profits channelled to miscreants rather than the legitimate publisher.
"We worry that this is the beginning of something very substantial," Hering said. "If you're downloading from a third party alternative market, it doesn't mean it's a bad idea but you need to really take caution with what you're doing. It's hard to know what's in there or what isn't"
More details - link
Although companies such as Google and Apple have dedicated marketplaces for applications that have been approved, there are an increasing number of third party sites for downloading applications, said John Hering, CEO of Lookout Mobile Security, on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
As part of its study, called the App Genome Project, Lookout examined applications in two alternative Android application marketplaces aimed at Chinese speakers. Eleven percent of the applications were merely clones of legitimate applications stuffed with other code, some of which have the potential to be malware, Hering said.
One of the most commonly cloned applications is Monkey Jump, Hering said. It isn't immediately clear what some of the code does in those tampered-with applications, but Hering said there are a few possibilities, such as creating a botnet or sending text messages to premium rate numbers.
Other possibilities are that the applications are then used to sign up to advertising schemes, with the profits channelled to miscreants rather than the legitimate publisher.
"We worry that this is the beginning of something very substantial," Hering said. "If you're downloading from a third party alternative market, it doesn't mean it's a bad idea but you need to really take caution with what you're doing. It's hard to know what's in there or what isn't"
More details - link
