Russian phone Trojan tries to ring up charges

by admin March 1, 2006 at 6:31 am

Anti-virus companies are warning of new malicious software that can infect any mobile phone capable of running Java applications, not just feature-rich smart phones.

The Trojan horse was first spotted by Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, which calls it RedBrowser. The malicious code poses as an application that promises people the ability to visit mobile Internet sites using text messages instead of an actual Net connection, Kaspersky said in a statement on Tuesday.

Instead, the Trojan sends messages to certain premium rate numbers that charge between US$5 and US$6 per message, Kaspersky said. That could drive up the text message bill for mobile phone users in Russia on the Beeline, MTS and Megafon networks.

So far, Kaspersky has received only one sample of RedBrowser. It is a proof-of-concept Trojan and has not actually infected any handsets in the wild.

Read more: ZDNet Australia