Hackers promise demo of Google Android rootkit

Posted by Penguin on Jun 2, 2010 4:15 PM EDT
Computerworld UK; By Robert McMillan
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Security researchers will demonstrate a malicious "rootkit" program they've written for Google's Android phone next month at the Defcon hacking conference in Las Vegas.

They have developed the kit in an effort to understand what a new generation of mobile malware could look like.

Once it's installed on the Android phone, the rootkit can be activated via a phone call or SMS (short message service) message, giving attackers a stealthy and hard-to-detect tool for siphoning data from the phone or misdirecting the user. "You call the phone, the phone doesn't ring, and when the phone realises that it's being called by an attacker's phone number, it sends him back a shell [program]," said Christian Papathanasiou, a security consultant with Chicago's Trustwave, the company that did the research.

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