[September 20, 2011] Smartphones are smarting from Trojan, malware attacks [DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India)] Tweet (DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Eight million users. That is the estimated number of people in India who use smartphones. An average 270 mb data is transferred from each device per month. Almost 20% of India will end up using smartphones if penetration keeps growing at this rate. My reason in bringing out these statistics is that most smartphones are insecure and vulnerable to various types of attacks. Not so smart, are they? Android phones lead the pack when it comes to vulnerability. The Market, from where you buy or download your favourite apps like Talking TomCat and Angry Birds is also host for Trojans which can easily enter your Androids and run on them like they do on your personal computers. Antiviruses can be easily bypassed by these Trojans that are specially built for Android OS. Apple users are safe in this case as they do not have to deal with Android Market. However, it's a well-known fact that whatever new comes to the market gets duplicated in few months. This holds true for all applications and Trojans attached to them. Precautionary measures of no download holds true when you haven't downloaded even a single application or game, which is a rarity; given you have a smartphone in your hand. It has been reported that almost 2.5-3 lakh Android phones have been hijacked by various kinds of Trojan. Worse than their PC counterparts, they can record all your calls, save files on your SD card without you even noticing. They kick-start as soon as you start your app and can send more than 25,000 premium SMSes from your phone at one go, on any desired number. Perfect solution to this problem is still not available. The best one can do is not download apps from any third party upload. Verify name and email address of publisher of the app so that he/she can be traced by filing a report. Keeping antivirus is good, as always, but they can be breached easily. Do not keep internet on always as some Trojan running in the background can exchange information online. Avoiding downloads is the best option. If your phone exhibits any suspecting nature, take a backup of your data and start afresh. The author is an ethical hacker and specialises in cyber crime investigations and forensics  Credit:Sunny Vaghela (c) 2011 @ 2011 DILIGENT MEDIA CORPORATION LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]