Malware

Threatpost interviews Mickey Boodaei, the CEO of Trusteer, about the state of mobile device security. Mobile
security issues have been getting more press recently – on Threatpost
and elsewhere. Partially, this is because they’re new, and because
mobile devices are proliferating both at home and in the workplace. As
with any new wrinkle in the security landscape, there’s a danger of
spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) when talking about these
kinds of new threats. Blogs and mainstream media outlets can end up
hyping the danger of relatively obscure threats simply because they
happen to mark the intersection of two interesting trends, like malware
and mobility. 

The United States used to be the leading industrial nation in the world, producing the best cars, TVs, clothes and deep-fried Twinkies. Those days are gone, but the U.S. can still claim primacy in one important area: the most malware-infested, phishing-friendly hosting provider.

The Zeus banking Trojan has jumped the bridge to the large and growing ecosystem of mobile devices powered by Google’s Android operating system, according to security researchers at Fortinet. 

You might think that everything that needs to be written on Stuxnet already has. After all, Threatpost has spilled (virtual) column inches on the stealthy worm, which targeted Siemens Simatic S7 programmable logic controllers. That’s in addition to posts by the likes of Symantec, McAfee and the mainstream media. But there’s still a story behind the story that hasn’t been told….until now.

For Android users, the refrain must be getting a little tiresome: Researchers have found another batch of apps in the Android Market that were infected with malware. Once again, it was the DroidDream malware family causing the trouble, but this time, it was just a handful of apps and they were only in the market for a little while.

The loose hacking collective known as Anonymous resumed its campaign against the U.S. government and companies that do business with it on Monday, releasing a trove of documents from government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. 

The Apple iPhone may still be the gold standard when it comes to smartphones, but the Android platform has become the playground of choice for attackers and malware authors looking to make a quick buck. The latest example is a premium-rate SMS Trojan that not only automatically sends costly SMS messages, but also prevents users’ carriers from notifying them of the new charges.