Six men responsible for creating a phone virus have been arrested in Tokyo. The men created what appeared to be a video viewing program, but instead led users to a pornographic site, also created by the men.The six men responsible for the scheme were between ages 27 and 52 years old and all of them had professional IT experience.
The virus was particularly targeted towards Android mobile phone users.
Although no video content was displayed, the site showed a continuous flashing ad which demanded that 99,800 yen be paid to the site.
The alert stated, "Please pay the fees as soon as possible. You need to confirm the unpaid amount. It totals 99,800 yen."
Japanese police said the porn site was disguised as video content and then added to the Android app as a way to trick people into downloading it.
Close to 10,000 people downloaded the virus, with 211 of them paying the money the ad asked for. Over 20 million yen has been stolen from victims of the virus. Everyone who downloaded the video viewing program had personal information and contacts stolen from their phones, upon downloading the virus.
According to BBC, this is the first case in Japan where a virus was created for targeting smartphones.
It is advised that smartphone users do not use third-party sites that include free apps. These sites tend to be rigged with viruses.
Android is becoming more of a target amongst virus writers, said Trend Micro. At the start of the year, it was expected that by the close of 2012 over 120,000 Android apps would contain viruses.
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