Recently a 20-year-old French man working out of his parent’s basement wrote a slew of malicious rogue Android apps and put them out onto the web. The infected and rewritten apps sent premium SMS messages unknowingly from your device. his work affected over 17,000 users and supposedly made him about half a million euros in the process since 2011. Which translates to $648,500 USD. The malware he unleashed didn’t just jack money from people’s pockets either. It also stole usernames and passwords for gaming and gambling sites.
He admitted to the crimes shortly after being arrested, but stated his actions weren’t those of greed. No, it was his love for computer technology and his ambition to be a software developer. Seems like a guy that is that smart could have done something to help the world and gain fame for greatness, not for harming the average consumer.
One down, 50 billion to go. This guy isn’t the only one out there doing things like this and he won’t be the last. One could easily say “Good, I’m glad he got arrested. All those apps he wrote up though hit the pirates. That will teach them to steal apps.” That very well might be true, but personally I am more disappointed that this guys intelligence was squandered with malicious intent. What I wouldn’t give to have that talent and make a difference for the good of the world and community.
What’s you take? How do you feel about malware and its use on Android, or any platform for that matter.
Source: After Dawn
