13 Android Security Attacks To Watch

Like the Comedy Central comedian, this Android attack dubbed HolyColbert, appears to have a sense of humor. Adding to the snarky sense of comedy is the tie-in date of May 21, 2011, the alleged ’end of the world’ perpetuated by some media sources. On this date, the malware began automatically replying to SMS messages sent to infected devices with the following text: ’Cannot talk right now, the world is about to end.’ The malware then Trojaned a legitimate, if controversial, free application called the ’Holy F***ing Bible,’ before randomly selecting one of several other similar anti-Christian messages and proceeding to text them to everyone on the victim's contact lists. Meanwhile, the malware also changed the devices' wallpaper, sent the user’s e-mail and phone number to a remote website and contacted the command and control server every 33 minutes. The attack also subscribed users to a mailing list related to the Colbert Report. Officially known as the Android/smspacem.Altr, the attack targets mobile devices running Android 2.1 or greater.

(Image provided by Symantec)