Android Malware, Is It All Just Trojans, Botnets, and Spyware?: How We've Been Lucky To Not Have Android Viruses Yet

Presented at ToorCon San Diego 13 (2011), Oct. 9, 2011, noon (20 minutes).

Android malware has increased by three times this year over last. These are made up of for-profit trojan horse programs, botnets and spyware. Unlike older platforms(e.g. PC, Mac) or other mobile platforms(e.g. Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile) which have all had parasitic file-infecting viruses, Android appears to have been spared. Writing malware that propagates on its own, without requiring user interaction, while potentially more malicious than a trojan is also more creative. The presentation will not provide recipes for writing an Android virus, but it will discuss the resources available to attackers: -Methods of infecting executables -Methods for gaining control from the original app -Methods used to avoid detection (existing only) Examples of legitimate apps that currently provide these resources will be discussed.

Presenters:

  • Jimmy Shah
    Jimmy Shah is a Mobile Security Researcher for McAfee. He works in mobile/embedded systems security. If it's lighter than a car, has a microprocessor, and is likely to be a target, then it's probably his problem. He regularly presents on mobile threat research at computer security conferences.

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