Posts

Showing posts with the label thoughtcrime

Android malware based on SMS encryption and with KitKat support

Image
Most of the malware based on the SMS C&C communication channel is not compatible with Android 4.4 KitKat. This is due to the fact that KitKat introduced a concept of one messaging app, which all other apps had to go trough before they send or handle a received text message. This prevented malware from hiding received short messages or sending without saving them in the "Sent" folder. Well, it wasn't hard to predict that this state of affairs wouldn't last long and that malware authors would eventually catch up. Malware described here not only supports KitKat, but also uses an open-source SMS encryption tool  as a basis for its code. Let's have a look at the insides of the new sample (hash: 84e2e9e8430792b583d02d3cc1bf8535 ) and let's call it SmsSecure, just for the sake of brevity.