Malware found on HTC Android phone from Vodafone
Security firm Panda says it found several types of malware on an HTC Magic on an Android-based device from Vodafone.
(Credit: HTC)An employee at Spanish antivirus firm Panda Security received a new Android-based Vodafone HTC Magic with malware on it, according to researchers at Panda Labs.
"Today one of our colleagues received a brand new Vodafone HTC Magic with Google's Android OS," researcher Pedro Bustamante wrote on the Panda Research Blog on Monday.
"The interesting thing is that when she plugged the phone to her PC via USB, her Panda Cloud Antivirus went off, detecting both an autorun.inf and autorun.exe as malicious," he wrote. "A quick look into the phone quickly revealed it was infected and spreading the infection to any and all PCs that the phone would be plugged into."
The malware began "phoning home" for instructions, Bustamante wrote. It's likely the user's credentials would have been stolen, he speculated.
The malware turned out to be related to the Mariposa botnet, but there was other malware on the device too--Conficker and a Lineage password-stealing Trojan, he said.
A Vodafone spokesperson did not return an e-mail from CNET seeking comment, but The Register published a statement from Vodafone that said it is investigating the matter.
"Following extensive quality assurance testing on HTC Magic handsets in several of our operating companies, early indications are that this was an isolated local incident," the statement said.
Last week, three people were arrested in Spain on charges of operating a massive botnet composed of 12.7 million PCs that stole credit card and bank log-in data and infected computers in half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 banks. The botnet was dubbed "Mariposa," which means butterfly in Spanish.
Updated at 1:07 p.m. PST with background on Mariposa-related arrests.
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
iPhones, iPods, and many cases of mass storage devices like external hard drives or even SD cards have had this problem in the past with the source being the one that is affected at the OEM and spreading out through the distribution of new devices in the retail chain.
Photo frames, battery chargers and now this. They are getting sneaky.
In fact I seem to recall back in 2003 or 2004 Apple had a batch of iPods that this occurred on. A machine in the factory that produces and tests the iPods got infected. iPods were connected to the machine to test the iPod prior to shipping and were getting infected in the same manner.
This can happen to any device that works as an external drive.
It seems from fudbuster77 comment that he was referring to their ability of acting as storage devices to spread viruses, which it seems logical i.e it is not the system but the memory carrying the virus etc.
iPhones and iPods have come from the factory carrying malware and other such goodies as they are treated as mass storage devices on many systems. They are no different from a USB thumbdrive in that manner. It has happened to pretty much all the OEM's that have mass storage devices.
I didn't say the iPhone or iPod was infected with a virus. In fact, nobody here has at all even mentioned a virus. I believe you are misunderstanding the article.
If you look at the details of the article - you will see that autorun.inf and autorun.exe were infected. As fudbuster77 rightly pointed out, the android device itself was safe..This could and has happened to iphones and ipods...
Anything with a USB mode would be able to carry malware like this. It doesn't matter who makes it.
First off... Apple doesn't ship the iphone or ipod or itouch with disk drive enable. The consumer have the option to enable disk drive but itune will format the hard drive then sync.
The phone did not have the virus, it just carried it.
IPhones, ipods, Mac, all do this.
Its different carrying a virus as opposed to being affected by it, however you wouldn't know this
I guess is time to read before you write...
Best regards
Still, very unfortunate for any company to have this bad publicity...
It doesn't matter that Windows can't write to the file format used by OS X or to Ext 3 or Ext 4, the file was sent, the file was saved, the virus is still attached. Because of this, you're machine is now a carrier. It's the reason I have an A/V on Ubuntu 9.10 and will continue to have one.
"It's the reason I have an A/V on Ubuntu 9.10 and will continue to have one."
Not me. I refuse to devote even one processor cycle to A/V in order to help clear up the Windows virus mess. Microsoft made their bed and now they (and anyone naive enough to use it) have to lay in it. I'm enjoying the fact that I can open any email, run reckless around the net and attach anything to my computer with total impunity. I have to admit that I also get a little satisfaction in telling you that. (Yeah, I run a Mac.)
ROFLMAO! great response!!!!
Now isn't that convenient! Free advertising for their anti-virus product! I'm willing to bet this will be called a fraud by the end of the week.
But like you said, interesting scenario here...
Guess I know now what lkrupp means...
I read about the Mariposa threat. . . impressive if you ask me...
I am not paranoid or anything and i always on all my posts i write about how i use Ubuntu and Fedora along with windows OS. But these people are finding more and more ways to steal personal info on mainstream OS that its getting scary
"n employee at Spanish antivirus firm Panda Security received a new Android-based Vodafone HTC Magic" have you asked yourself If the device was brand new how did the malware get in the phone in the first place ? DId it get in at the manufacturers ?? I highly doubt it !!
could it have been a miniSD card ? yes i think so? Do i think kojacked is right on his post above ? yes i do. Corporate sabotage has been around for so long. other competitors for the same market will try to eliminate competition
Any operating system is susceptible to viruses, trojans, etc. Is completely ignorant to state the Iphone, Ipod, android devices, etc. are immune to malware. One way or another there is always a possibility for this to occur.
He never stated that any of those devices is immune (though he may believe that). What he actually stated is simply that they don't get infected, not that they can't.
See the issue here? If I put a virus on a USB stick with an Apple logo does it mean that that Apple products are crap and are infected by viruses? No.. but the second I put it into a windows computer and it auto infects it due to such a crappy O/S, most certainly the problem is in the O/S, not the carrier, the USB Stick.
Here the phone nor the code on the phone is the problem... it's Windows, yet again.
- by March 11, 2010 12:23 PM PST
- How do we know that the panda employee didn't put the malware on to the phones storage and then start the complaint.
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