Cyber-thieves are using games including Angry Birds to turn Android phones into spam-sending drones.
Phones have been infected with spam-forwarding software that hid inside free versions of popular Android games.
Once installed, the booby-trapped app contacts a web server for a list of phone numbers then starts sending junk text messages to them.
Angry Birds Space, Need for Speed Most Wanted and many other games have been used in the attack.
The first stage of the campaign to recruit phones to act as spam relays. It involved sending out thousands of messages supposedly offering people free versions of popular Android games, said network security firmCloudmark in an analysis of the SpamSoldier attack.
The copies of the games were held on a server in China rather than on the main Google Play store, it said. After the app is downloaded users must disable some safeguards, grant the app permission to install and give it the ability to browse the web or send texts messages before it will run.
BBC has the full article
