Motivated by the low cost of connectivity and hardware, cybercriminals in China have begun targeting mobile phone users.
Senior security executive from Trend Micro, Lion Gu, researches the current behavior of the Chinese underground and observed that cybercriminals have begun to adapt to the mobile trend, even if they are targeting the local market.
In his research, he found that there are services available even to boost the ranking of an Android app. Since there is no official Google store for China, Android platform users download software from third parties, whose content is not subject to strict security checks.
Cybercriminals take advantage of boosting the rankings of their malicious applications to attract more victims. This is achieved by creating fake user accounts that flood the software with positive reviews. They can also use these accounts to increase the number of downloads.
Another method followed by cybercriminals that constitutes a “business opportunity” consists of creating mobile applications that subscribe to a premium service without the victim’s knowledge or consent.
Lion Gu also noted that spamming services were created with efficiency in mind. “When it comes to spamming, most users assume that cybercriminals simply send messages to all possible numbers. This is not entirely true. Spammers actually filter out phone numbers that are not in use to save time and money,” the researcher states in a blog post.
Judging by the researcher's findings, cybercrime in China is not only diverse, but also well-organized.
Based on this, Lion Gu believes in an increase in the number of threats and will present his ideas on Friday, at the Association of anti-Virus Asia Researchers (AVAR) conference, in Sydney.
