The author of the Bilal Bot Android banking trojan got in touch with IBM's X-Force security team and demanded that they issue corrections to the way they have described its malware.
It all started after IBM released a report at the end of April on the top Android banking trojans being sold on criminal underground hacking forums, after the creator of GM Bot, one of the most dangerous and versatile mobile banking trojans, was banned from various forums.
One of the growing threats, as highlighted by IBM in its report, was an Android banking trojan called Bilal Bot, which the company's analyst described as a low-cost alternative to GM Bot.
The (alleged) author of Bilayer Bot wanted IBM to modify its original blog post and include the latest information.
“If I had to guess, I would say that what bothered the Bilal Bot seller was my original blog post, where I called malware a ‘low-cost option’ compared to GM Bot,” Limor Kessem. “It’s very likely that its price has increased since the malware moved out of beta and the developer doesn’t want potential buyers to demand a lower price.”
According to an investigation that followed up by IBM researchers after the email they received from the Bilal Bot creator, the banking trojan did indeed receive new features and was targeting a higher price, which reinforces Kessem's theory that the malware simply wanted to move up the price scale.
