Android trojan found in the wild
Android trojan found in the wild | Android Central
Welcome to the big time, Android users -- the first Android-specific trojan has been announced by Kaspersky Lab. Don't sound the alarms and clang the bells just yet, as even with
200,000 activations a day this thing (so far) is as rare as an honest politician. If you are unlucky enough to install it, the trojan will send premium SMS messages (as in the kind that add money to your monthly carrier bill) behind the scenes and without your knowledge or permission. Like its Windows and iPhone counterparts, you won't find it in any reputable place like the Android Market, and will have to peruse the seedy side of the interwebz to run into it. Yes, I'm talking about those so-called .apk black markets. But since there's also a chance an innocent party could come across this one, rather than point and laugh, let's talk about how to prevent it.
Which brings us to side-loading and application permissions. If you don't go for the conspiracy theories,
AT&T is protecting you from this sort of thing by disabling sideloading. Once you get a bit more comfortable with Android,
we've re-enabled that for you, so even you AT&T subscribers need to pay attention to application permissions. If you download a supposed video player (A 13kb video player? That's a hint in itself) that needs access to your messaging program, and install it anyway you're just asking for trouble.
Of course you could download and install one of the Android anti-virus apps, that's your call. In any case, be careful what you download, where you download it from, and for goodness sakes read the application permissions before you click away! [
Kaspersky Lab]
