Android Trojan Let Loose in China, Creating Botnet

From DailyTech: Android is starting to pick up steam in the world's biggest nation – China -- in terms of both population and cell phone use. With its rise in popularity, a number of third-party app stores have popped up alongside the official Android Marketplace. While these third parties distribute paid software, they are also popular as they take more of a lax stance to potentially pirated or cloned apps.

The dark side of the under regulation of these third-party app distributors has reared its ugly head, with a new trojan virus preying on unsuspecting Chinese Android users.

According to Lookout Mobile Security, a startup that is emerging as promising party in the hot mobile security market, a sophisticated Trojan named Geinimi has infiltrated third-party app markets in China and is constructing what appears to be a smartphone botnet.

The firm writes in a blog, "Geinimi is effectively being ‘grafted’ onto repackaged versions of legitimate applications, primarily games, and distributed in third-party Chinese Android app markets. The affected applications request extensive permissions over and above the set that is requested by their legitimate original versions."

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