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Android botnet detected on all major mobile networks

JB

Spammers have amassed the first-known Android botnet, consisting of compromised devices running on all the major U.S. mobile networks, and it's being used to deliver SMS spam, researchers said this week.

Spotted in early December by two San Francisco-based security firms, Cloudmark and Lookout Mobile Security, the botnet grows when users unwittingly install a malicious game application that contains the SpamSoldier trojan. Infected devices then communicates with a command-and-control server, receiving instructions to send SMS messages to more than 100 phone numbers.

After texting those numbers, infected phones get a new list of targets within about a minute. The malware also blocks incoming and outgoing texts from unknown numbers, in case users or mobile service providers try to alert victims of their spamming.