Trojan Porn Dialers Make Comeback On Mobile Phones
After taking a long hiatus, trojan dialers that can rack up thousands of dollars in charges are back by popular demand.
According to researchers at CA Security’s malware analysis lab, a new wave of malicious dialers is hitting users of mobile phones. The trojans are built on the Java 2 Micro Edition programming language and cause infected handsets to send SMS messages to high-cost numbers, at great expense to the victim.
“As soon as the application is loaded, this malicious software starts to send premium text messages,” CA warned on Tuesday. “The messages sent out are in the typical format to invoke premium services and land the mobile user with heavy mobile bills without the user’s knowledge and consent.”
Malware that automatically dials pricey premium numbers was all the rage a decade ago, when dial-up internet services required computers to connect to a phone line. With the growth of broadband connections the frequency of dialers waned.
When malware application, which is a JAD file, is loaded on the mobile device, a typical user interface screen is displayed:
The JAD application however is packaged with a data file (load.bin) that has a list of high-cost destination numbers. The malicious application uses this bin file to form the text messages with the desired premium destination. As soon as the application is loaded, this malicious software starts to send premium text messages.
The explosion of smart phone that can run software made by anyone has given malicious dialers a new lease on life. And as was the case in the days of yore, they mostly tap into porn services.
Credit: The Register, CA Security
More on CyberInsecure:
Posts
Leave a Reply
Comments with unsolicited links to other resources will be marked as spam. DO NOT leave links in comments. Please leave your real email, it wont be published.