It seems like some people will do anything to mine new Bitcoins. This week, the security firm Lookout announced that a number of malicious Android apps found their way to the Google Play store that secretly use a phone"s processor to create new Bitcoins.
Apps like these could hide a Bitcoin mining malware program.
Lookout previously revealed that a malware program called CoinKrypt had been incorporated into Android apps which made phones mine other digital-only currencies like Litecoin, Dogecoin and Casinocoin. Their new report now claims cyber criminals are moving to apps that mine the most popular online currency, Bitcoin, by hiding malware in wallpaper apps.
The malware itself is called BadLepricon and while the apps that contain the software do offer up new wallpaper, they also use a phone"s CPU to mine Bitcoins. The malware is especially hard to detect because it actually tries to conserve a phone"s resources so that its Bitcoin activities don"t burn it out.
Lookout found the malware lurking inside wallapaper Android apps that ranged from animated artwork to photos of shirtless men; the company alerted Google which quickly deleted five of those apps from its Google Play store. Lookout recommends Android phone owners keep the "Unknown sources" setting unchecked so their device won"t have to deal with "dropped or drive-by-download app installs"
Source: Lookout | Image via Lookout