14 DAY TRIAL // A rogue Android app being spread from unofficial markets shames pirates by sending embarrassing SMS messages to all of their contacts.
It seems that the recent trend of repackaging legit Android apps with malware has inspired anti-piracy activists who have adapted the technique to teach copyright infringers a lesson.
In order to lure pirates into installing their rogue app, its creators pass it as a pirated version of "Walk and Text," a legit app that normally costs $1.54.
Upon installation, the app displays a dialog reading "Cracking..." and sends phone number, model, IMEI, and other identification data to a remote server.
Most importantly, it sends a text message without authorization to all of a user's contacts, reading: "Hey,just downlaoded a pirated App off the Internet, Walk and Text for Android. Im stupid and cheap,it costed only 1 buck.Don’t steal like I did!"
This action is not only embarrassing for the user, but also potentially very costly if they happen to have a very large contact list. In most cases, the cost of these SMS messages will far exceed the $1.54 cost of the legit app.
After sending the SMSes the app displays a dialog saying: "Application Not Licensed. We really hope you learned something from this. Check your bill ;) Oh and don't forget to buy the App from the market."
"Interestingly enough, the Trojan performs the above set of actions in a routine of Android.Walkinwat called 'LicenseCheck', something traditionally used by legitimate apps for license management in conjunction with a Licensing Verification Library available for the Android platform to help prevent piracy," note Symantec security researchers.
This is not the first case of anti-piracy supporters resorting to malware in order to get their message across. Japanese virus writer Masato Nakatsuji was arrested last year after creating a virus that replaced media files on computers with images of a squid.
His "ika-tako" malware was spread on a p2p network in order to target file sharers. According to authorities, it destroyed files on as many as 50,000 computers.