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A Microsoft engineer has discovered a worldwide botnet consisting on Android devices being used to send out spam.
Writing on his MSDN blog, Terry Zink explains how he used the headers of spam samples containing the signature ?Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android? and traced them back to locations in the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe.
According to Zink, there?s a clear reason why this botnet is prevalent in countries such as Chile, Indonesia, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
?I am betting that the users of those phones downloaded some malicious Android app in order to avoid paying for a legitimate version and they got more than they bargained for,? writes Zink. ?Either that or they acquired a rogue Yahoo Mail app?.
?Users in the developed world usually have better security practices and fewer malware infections than users in the developing world,? Zink points out. ?Where are almost all of those countries in the list above? Mostly in the developing world?.
The best and easiest way to protect yourself from being roped into this kind of botnet ? not to mention Android malware in general ? is to only download software from outlets such as the Google Play (formerly Android Market). The more you venture into third-party download sites, or when you try to get something that costs money for nothing, you?re potentially giving hackers and the bad guys a foot in the door and opening up your Android device to malware.
Is it really worth putting your Android device ? let alone all the data is contains ? at risk to get a cheap app for free?
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