Vodafone ships handset riddled with malware

GaryW

Dan Worth, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 16:34:00
Spanish customer buys HTC Magic preloaded with Mariposa botnet client
Vodafone has shipped a handset in Spain that contained data-stealing malware,
according to new revelations from Panda Research.
The security firm said that it found an HTC Magic device running Google's
Android platform, and containing a Mariposa botnet client, among other malware.
Pedro Bustamante, senior research advisor at Panda, explained in a
blog
post how the virus works.
\"Once infected you can see the malware 'phoning home' to receive further
instructions, probably to steal all of the user's credentials and send them to
the malware writer,\" he said.
A Vodafone spokesman said that the company is investigating the incident,
which it believes is limited to a single handset. He also speculated on how the
malware may have found its way onto the device.
\"The most likely cause of this infection is that someone will have sent the
device back to Vodafone in a box that looked sealed, when in fact it had been
tampered with,\" he said.
The spokesman added that Vodafone takes complaints of this nature very
seriously, and that all quality assurance, security and privacy processes are
updated to meet any new threats.
Bustamante said that Panda Research is purchasing more handsets to study the
extent of the problem, and that the device also carried Conficker and Lineage
password-stealing malware.

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