A new tool lets anyone trojanize Android apps

Mobile malware is steadily moving towards becoming a true criminal enterprise. In a blog post yesterday, Symantec Senior Software Engineer Andrea Lelli described the rise of an underground market for malware tools based on Androrat, a remote administration tool that can give an attacker complete control over devices running the Android OS.

Androrat can grab call logs, contact data, and all SMS messages on the device, as well as capture messages as they come in. It can provide live monitoring of call activity, take pictures with the phone's camera, and stream audio from the phone's microphone back to its server. It can also post "toasts" (application messages) on the screen, place phone calls, send text messages, and open websites in the phone's browser. If it is launched as an application (or "activity"), it can even stream video from the camera back to the server.

"When the Trojanized version of the legitimate app is installed on the device, the user unsuspectingly installs AndroRAT alongside the legitimate app they intended to install," Lelli explained. "This allows the attacker to circumvent elements of the Android security model through deception. To date, Symantec has counted 23 cases of popular legitimate apps being Trojanized in the wild with AndroRAT."

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