Norton discovers first case of justice against piracy on the mobile landscape

As our increasingly connected community in the UAE opens us up to new, malicious threats everyday Norton warns users to pay attention to the latest dangers posed to them just by using their mobile phone. Android.Walkinwat is the first mobile phone threat discovered that attempts to discipline users that download files illegally from unauthorized sites. Presented as a non-existent version (V 1.3.7) of Walk and Text, an application that is available on the Android Market, Android.Walkinwat can be found on several renowned file sharing websites.

How does it work?

Once running the app, the user is presented with a dialog box that gives the appearance that the app is in the process of being compromised or cracked, when in fact, the app is gathering and attempting to send back sensitive data (name, phone number, IMEI information, etc.) to an external server.

Additionally, the app sends out the following SMS message to all contacts in the contact list:

Interestingly enough, the Trojan performs the above set of actions in a routine 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. The authors of the malicious code have taken an extra step to make sure that their app was obfuscated, which is another recommended measure to prevent piracy. 

The app concludes with a final message to the user, reminding them to check their phone bill, as well as providing an option of buying the legitimate version of the app from the Android App market. The message goes:

“While this is not the first case of disciplinary justice that has been used to warn against piracy in the fight against cybercrime, this is the first case evident in Android, illustrating the extent of the ever-growing network of cybercriminals that are constantly discovering ways to target victims through increasingly available new mediums,” said Tamim Taufiq, Head of Consumer Sales MENA for Symantec.