- Sep 24, 2010
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Feeling a little sick? According to Lookout, the makers of an Android Security and anti-virus application called myLookout there is a new Trojan that apparently is affecting Android devices in China called "Geinimi." This virus spreads by hiding in known legitimate apps, including Monkey Jump 2, Sex Positions, President vs. Aliens, City Defense and Baseball Superstars 2010, and infects your tablet when you install an app that has it. More on this later in this post.
According to Lookout, “…The specific information it collects includes location coordinates and unique identifiers for the device (IMEI) and SIM card (IMSI). At five-minute intervals, Geinimi attempts to connect to a remote server using one of ten embedded domain names. A subset of the domain names includes www.widifu.com, www.udaore.com, www.frijd.com, www.islpast.com and www.piajesj.com. If it connects, Geinimi transmits collected device information to the remote server…”
While the good folks over at Android Central and Droid Life point out that this is probably not going to ruin most Android users days as the majority of their applications installed come from the main Android Market, since a lot of the tablets we love come direct from China, and due to the fact that we are having to do a lot of hacks and workarounds to get things on our devices, we may need to be more diligent than the phone users. In order to get this Trojan you have to download and sideload an infected app through Chinese app stores. So unless you're doing that, you should be cool.
The solution? After “a much higher level of effort than usually required” Lookout has analyzed the threat and updated their app to take care of this malware. Download and install their application from either the Market or directly from them at Lookout and you should be fine.
(sources - Android Central, Android Life, Lookout, Wikipedia)
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