New Android Trojan that can record voice calls

If you are using a smartphone with Android, then you need to be on the guard. A researcher with Computer Associates has spotted a Trojan for the Google Android platform that is capable of quietly recording user's phone calls for possible misuse at a later stage.
This is not the first time that Android has had a problem with Trojan applications. In the past too there have been instances where cyber criminals have gotten hold of a popular Android app and modified it to include a malicious payload. After that the infected app gets re-uploaded at the marketplace.
As soon as a user downloads the infected app, his or her device becomes ready to share all kinds of details with the Trojan’s creator. Text messages, call and contact information, and, as the present case has show, even complete audio recordings can get leaked. The Trojan records audio in AMR format.
This is a recent malware that targets the Android platform. This Trojan like many typical social engineering Trojans, comes bundled with a game. The credit for discovering it goes to Prof. Xuxian Jiang. The audio that the Trojan records gets stored in the mobile’s microSD card.

Word on the street is that a new Android trojan will save audio of all your phone calls and open them up for access by a remote server. Lucky for you, it’s only word on the street; the trojan has not been spotted in the wild, yet. A blog post by an employee of Total Defense details the trojan’s MO. Apparently, it poses as an Android System Message that requires users to press “install.”

After being activated, the trojan will record all of your calls and save them to the phone’s memory, only exporting them to a remote server after receiving a request from the trojan’s operator. Like a fake video calling app that showed up on Facebook, this trojan does sort of give itself away by mentioning all the sketchy things you are giving it permission to do, like “record audio,” so an attentive user might be suspicious. Hiding behind an official looking system message does lend it some authority, however.

You might wonder what someone would want with all your phone calls anyway, and the answer is probably identification. If a hacker can find a call where you identified yourself to your bank, for instance, they would have all the information they needed to do the same. Fortunately, finding something like that requires sifting through a lot of garbage data, which makes it less than appealing for the hacker on the go.

So why do cyber criminals want to bother with recording audio calls? The answer is obvious. This could be an incredibly devious way of harvesting answers to the verification questions your bank or credit card company requests when you call in. Sure, it might turn out to be a pain to shift through all the recorded calls, but calls to financial institutions can easily be weeded out using their phone numbers.

study says, “There are already begun to see a steady growth in the number of social engineering based Trojans for the mobile platform and we believe that only educating the users along with adequate software protection is the key to be safer from such malware threats.”

A study done by Juniper Networks has revealed a 400 percent increase in Android malware since 2010. The same report has also sounded alarm over Wi-Fi attacks.

As mentioned before, this particular trojan has yet to be found out and about, but it would appear that it still exists as a proof of concept. A proof of scary concept. So, keep that in mind next time you hit the install button on your Android, or on any device for that matter. And while you’re at it, might as well keep that in mind every time you install anything.