Smartphones powered by Google
Android operating system are being using for illegal botnet, says a researcher
from Microsoft. Just to be clear, botnets are big networks of “infected”
systems, generally desktop and/or laptop computers normally used for sending mass
spam mails.
Microsoft researcher Terry Zink
wrote in his
msdn blog that, there was indication of spamming from Yahoo! Email server
using device ran by Android OS.
While Microsoft’s own mobile
platform Windows Phone operating system is a big competitor of Google’s Android,
the discussed platform (Android) is suffered from many malware affected
applications in recent months with high profile issues.
The official online store “Google Play” backed by the search giant, has had several questions with pirated zero cost version of premium popular apps like Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds. It was also being criticized for fake harmful applications. This latest discovery means the direction of attack toward Android has been changed. It also involves with the OS’s brand image too.
Mr. Zink wrote in his blog post,
“I came across some interesting spam samples today.
The messages all come from Yahoo Mail servers. They are all from compromised Yahoo accounts. They are sending all stock spam, the typical pump and dump variety that we’ve seen for years.
But what is interesting about them is that they all contain the following Message-ID:
Message-ID: <1341147286.19774.androidMobile@web140302.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Furthermore, they all have the following at the bottom of their spam:
Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android”
He also revealed the IP address analysis which suggests the spam was originated from Android powered device in Chile, Indonesia, Lebanon, Oman, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
Google said that, they did not respond to specific app queries, but working to improve the security of Android platform. Last year Google Play got a new service which provides automatic scanning to find out whether the app is safe or infected. They believed that, it does not disrupt user experience and the developers also need not to go through application approval procedure.
Analysts recommend reading the reviews of applications before installing these in consumers’ devices.