14 DAY TRIAL // It has become a common fact that Android is not the safest mobile platform out there, on the contrary, the operating system has been the target of numerous malicious software that can be downloaded as third-party apps.
However, it appears that many software security companies are trying to discover Android malware and offer protection solutions for those that use the largest smartphone platform available in the market.
The latest discovery is a serious Trojan virus that is capable of recording telephonic conversations of the infected victims.
It is unclear if the virus can also send the recorded conversation to a third-party device, but it is certain that the conversations are save in .amr format and stored in a directory called shangzhou/callrecord on the SD memory card.
The Trojan was identified by software security specialist Dinesh Venkatesan at computer security firm CA, who emphasized that the virus installs as a legitimate Android application.
According to Venkatesan, the Trojan can only be installed if the Android device owner clicks the “install” button on a message that looks similar to the installation screens of legitimate applications.
As soon as the malware is installed along with the remote server configuration file, making a phone call “triggers the payload” and starts recording all the calls and stores them on the SD card.
Furthermore, the researcher also states that the newly discovered Trojan also has many other malicious activities that can be seen in many of the earlier malware incidents targeted for Android platform.
It appears that the only “protection” against these kind of malware is to simply pay attention to the permissions that the application is asking for.
For the most part, Android users can avoid most of the viruses that target Google's mobile platform by downloading apps only from trusted sources, such as Android Market and Amazon App Store.
