Android Trojans gain botnet distribution, new code

A dangerous Trojan that targets Google’s Android mobile operating system has gained new nefarious capabilities even as a new banking malware takes aim at the OS, according to security researchers.

Kaspersky Lab reported that mobile botnets are being used to distribute the Obad.a Trojan, which can gain administrative rights on an Android device — allowing its masters to do pretty much anything they want with a handset.

Meanwhile, Eset revealed that a bad app it discovered earlier this month — Hesperbot — is actually a mobile banking Trojan along the lines of Zeus and SpyEye, but with significant implementation differences that make it a new malware family.

The Obad.a Trojan has been closely watched by Kaspersky since the beginning of the summer, but it wasn’t until recently that researchers uncovered the unusual distribution method its handlers have been deploying.

“For the first time, malware is being distributed using botnets that were created using completely different mobile malware,” Kaspersky researcher Roman Unuchek wrote in a blog.

SOURCE: csoonline.com