Online security company Kaspersky Lab has published details of a mobile application that it describes as ‘the most sophisticated’ Android malware it’s ever seen.
The file - now being referred to as Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a - is capable of sending text messages to premium rate numbers, downloading and installing more malware, sending malware via Bluetooth and performing other commands.
What’s particularly notable is that the app’s code was completely obfuscated (made deliberately unclear) and the app itself did not appear on a smartphone’s list of installed applications.
In a blog post, Roman Unuchek from Kaspersky Lab said the Trojan app had been spotted last month, with most downloads resulting from SMS spam in Russia.
He noted “We would like to add that Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a looks closer to Windows malware than to other Android Trojans, in terms of its complexity and the number of unpublished vulnerabilities it exploits. This means that the complexity of Android malware programs is growing rapidly alongside their numbers.”
[Kaspersky Lab securelist.com blog]