For a year, some IT security analysts have been warning that treacherous new malware could morph into a mobile nightmare. Now it may be here, and it’s using sex as its lure.
A few months ago, security software vendors identified a piece of early mobile malware known as Sexy View. First found in China, it was the first malware relying on SMS — Short Message Service — in order to proliferate. With it, infected phones could spam everyone on the phone’s contact list and entice them to download porn-related content.
Now it seems Sexy View has spawned Sexy Space. According to IDG, Sexy Space is capable of downloading new SMS templates from a remote server for sending out spam. It also steals network information from the phone and sends it back to a remote server.
The debate occurring now among security analysts is whether Sexy Space qualifies as the first botnet — networks of hacked computers, and one of the Internet’s worst security threats — written for the huge population of mobile devices.