The Obad.a Android Trojan first analyzed by Kaspersky Lab in June has turned out to have an innovative and predatory capability to piggyback on botnets controlled by third-party criminal networks.
This behavior was spotted when the firm noticed that smartphones that had been infected with the hugely successful but apparently unrelated Opfake.a Trojan were being used as a launching pad for Obad.a to send malicious links to everyone in that victim's address book.
According to Kaspersky, the malware was also being spread via convincing-looking copies of the Google Play store as well as a campaign of mobile spam. Someone wants to get Obad.a on to as many Android devices as possible.
So far, they've been successful in Russia with a smaller number of infections in nearby republics such as Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. One Russian mobile network had detected 600 of Obad's spam messages in a matter of hours, suggesting that its piggyback tactic was working, Kaspersky said.
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