- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
David Jevans, CTO and founder of Marble Security, recently received some bad feedback from a potential customer testing his company’s product, which helps organizations manage and secure their mobile devices.
“They basically said ‘Your stuff doesn’t work’,” Jevans said. “It thinks Netflix is malicious.”
Marble Security performs static code analysis of Android and iOS applications, which shows what the code is supposed to do. Apps are also run through an emulator with instrumentation that allows analysts to get a larger view of how an application performs. They also check an app’s network traffic to see if it is communicating with known malicious servers.
After taking a close look at the suspicious application, Jevans said they found it wasn’t the real Netflix app.
“We’re like, yeah, this isn’t the real Netflix,” Jevans said “You’ve got one that has been tampered with and is sending passwords and credit card information to Russia.”
Security experts have long warned that downloading applications from third-party marketplaces for the Android platform is risky since the applications have often not undergone a security review. Google patrols Android apps in its Play store, but malicious ones occasionally sneak in. Apple’s App Store is less affected due to the company’s strict reviews.
With the fake Netflix application, the organization told Marble Security the app was pre-installed when it bought the device. Marble Security then looked at devices from its other customers and found the problem was widespread. They found a fake version of Netflix on phones and tablets from at least four different manufacturers, Jevans said.
“We suspect for most of them, it is preinstalled,” Jevans said.
Marc Rogers, principal security researcher with Lookout Mobile Security, said his company has seen instances of malware show up on new phones. Lookout found a variant of a family of Chinese malware on new devices imported on the gray market from China.
Read more: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2104760/preinstalled-malware-turns-up-on-new-phones.html
“They basically said ‘Your stuff doesn’t work’,” Jevans said. “It thinks Netflix is malicious.”
Marble Security performs static code analysis of Android and iOS applications, which shows what the code is supposed to do. Apps are also run through an emulator with instrumentation that allows analysts to get a larger view of how an application performs. They also check an app’s network traffic to see if it is communicating with known malicious servers.
After taking a close look at the suspicious application, Jevans said they found it wasn’t the real Netflix app.
“We’re like, yeah, this isn’t the real Netflix,” Jevans said “You’ve got one that has been tampered with and is sending passwords and credit card information to Russia.”
Security experts have long warned that downloading applications from third-party marketplaces for the Android platform is risky since the applications have often not undergone a security review. Google patrols Android apps in its Play store, but malicious ones occasionally sneak in. Apple’s App Store is less affected due to the company’s strict reviews.
With the fake Netflix application, the organization told Marble Security the app was pre-installed when it bought the device. Marble Security then looked at devices from its other customers and found the problem was widespread. They found a fake version of Netflix on phones and tablets from at least four different manufacturers, Jevans said.
“We suspect for most of them, it is preinstalled,” Jevans said.
Marc Rogers, principal security researcher with Lookout Mobile Security, said his company has seen instances of malware show up on new phones. Lookout found a variant of a family of Chinese malware on new devices imported on the gray market from China.
Read more: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2104760/preinstalled-malware-turns-up-on-new-phones.html
