Legal action taken over Android malware? Now that's a first.
Over the weekend, six men in Japan were arrested for distributing a malicious Android app through a porn site, according to Japanese newspaper The Daily Yomiuri.
The Trojan was packaged in an app posing as a free video codec. When launched, the virus harvested users' phonebooks, email addresses, and other personal information, and sent them to a remote server. It also displayed a screen every five minutes demanding payment of 99,800 yen, the report said.
Of the 9,252 downloads since December 30, 2011, around 211 people (two percent) fell for the trick and paid a total of 21 million yen ($266,176). This reminds us of why Android is the fastest-growing target for malware writers—high margins. It's cheap and easy to make, and has a massive user base.
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