Duo arrested in France over \"100,000 Android malware scam

Two men has been arrested on suspicion of developing mobile malware that ended up on greater than 2,000 Android devices.

According to a report by French website linformaticien.com, the 2 unnamed men were arrested in Bobigny and only identified as a "brain" and a "technician"; they're accused of conning users out of a typical of "20 to "30. French authorities estimate that the complete scam amounted to "100,000.

The malware utilized in this example was the Foncy Trojan, which spreads via file-hosting website ‘SuiConFo.apk' and, after installation, appears at the main menu of Android smartphones and sends four SMS messages to premium-rate numbers.

According to a blog by Kaspersky Lab mobile malware expert Denis Maslennikov, after defining the rustic, number and text, the four SMS messages are sent with the aid of the sendTextMessage method.

“The Trojan will send an SMS message to a French cell-phone number with the text taken from a reply from a premium-rate number. This can help the cyber criminals learn how many premium SMS messages was sent,” he said.

The report by linformaticien.com claimed that a judicial inquiry was opened by the prosecutor of Bobigny, with charges for organised fraud and possession of malware.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: “More recently, Foncy has also appeared inside the sort of a faux EA Sports game, exploiting a vulnerability to root the telephone, sending SMS messages and silently joining an IRC channel to receive further commands from remote hackers.

“According to the French authorities, the 2 men purported to be behind the malware earned as much as "100,000 from the scheme. Is it any wonder we're seeing a rise in Android malware activity, if the bad guys are creating wealth out of it?”