Google denies Redmond report of a spamming Android botnet
'Show us the evidence,' says Chocolate Factory
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Google is disputing claims from a Microsoft researcher that a functioning botnet is operating on Android phones and spamming out Viagra and penny stock adverts to unsuspecting punters.
Terry Zink, program manager for Microsoft Forefront online security, took time during the annual July 4 "We're kicking out the Brits and will spell color any way we please" holiday to post an analysis of a spam operation using Yahoo!'s webmail service. The spam uses the message ID 1341147286.19774.androidMobile@web140302.mail.bf1.yahoo.com and includes the line "Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android"
"All of these message are sent from Android devices," he said. "We’ve all heard the rumors, but this is the first time I have seen it – a spammer has control of a botnet that lives on Android devices. These devices login to the user's Yahoo Mail account and send spam."
Zink said that those IP addresses that included location data indicated the infected devices were located in Chile, Indonesia, Lebanon, Oman, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela. He attributed this to the likelihood that local Android apps sites were selling malware-laced software for the Android.
"The evidence does not support the Android botnet claim," Google told The Register in a statement. "Our analysis suggests that spammers are using infected computers and a fake mobile signature to try to bypass anti-spam mechanisms in the email platform they're using."
Zink's announcement certainly set tongues wagging in the security industry, with vendors split on whether or not this is an actual Android botnet or a clever spoof using PCs looking to imitate such a scenario.
Sophos senior security advisor Chet Wisniewski told The Register that spam was still coming in from the botnet at a rate of around five pieces an hour, and the circumstantial evidence seemed to suggest a functioning Android botnet.
"There's just little pieces of evidence that this is coming from an Android handset, but no smoking gun that proves the case entirely," he said.
On Thursday, Zink posted an update to his original report, admitting that the case for the botnet was not proven. It would be possible to use a PC to strip out the Yahoo! message IDs and replace them, he said, and to add the sent-from-an-Android message. He has considered this could all be an "elaborate deception" by spammers, but that he stands by his original findings.
Yahoo! told El Reg in a statement that it was investigating the case and that it encourages users of its mobile applications to only buy applications from registered marketplaces. ®
COMMENTS
You've got to laugh
Microsoft researchers say an OS may be insecure and leave you vulnerable to botnet shenanigans.
My irony meter just exploded.
So.....
Microsoft is upset that it's mobile operating system isn't performing as well as it would like and has decided to slur Android? Seriously - Microsoft "security" is only technical enough to examine the headers of spam to find it's origin? Like spammers actually advertise the email system they use....... "HEY WORLD, I'M SPAM THAT WAS SENT FROM AN ANDROID PHONE - COME AND NEUTRALISE ME NOW YOU KNOW WHAT DEVICE I LIVE ON"
*sigh* sometimes I wonder just what qualifications people need these days to be "technically qualified"
"Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android"
Er, I can add "Sent from " to any email I want as well. Or 'Sent From my iPhone' etc. Spoofing the message ID is a little harder, but still easier than writing a malware infected mail client and getting it onto a bot-net worth of hand-held's.
I would presume spammers are smart enough to know that having little things like that mobile client ID might be enough to reduce some algorithm's probability of marking the item as spam. My guess is that Baysian filters would learn that 99.9% of say Hotmail email is spam, where as little to no spam comes from mobile email clients in which the customer in theory pays.
My (evil) thought would be that all a spammer has to do, would be to offer cheap/free low end Android phones in, loaded with an app or infected version of Android. Would a student in a Nigeria turn down a free Android phone setup for pre-pay? All the device needs to do is be programmed to look at a bot-net controller for client adverts to be sent out, then whenever the device is on Wifi, sends the emails out at a moderate(ish) rate. Potentially then spam could originate from hundreds or thousands of Wifi points.. along with the Wifi password if the user has entered it....
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