In the September 2012 edition of the Symantec Intelligence Report, the world’s leading online security vendor discovered an Android application– Android.Sumzand – claims to convert the smartphone screen into a solar panel that can charge the battery.
Unfortunately, Android devices do not contain solar panels—a critical component needed to turn light into electricity. Naturally the application can do nothing of the sort. Instead, what the app really does is steal contact data from the phone.
Symantec advises that users should be careful what they download and install from application marketplaces. If an application requests permissions that seem out of the ordinary for what it is supposed to do, then don’t install it.
Symantec detects Android.Sumzand as a Trojan horse for Android devices that steals information and sends it to a remote location. Once installed, the application will display an icon with Japanese characters or with the following text: Solar
The threat was first discovered in early August and threat level is labelled as low.
In addition, Symantec also revealed some key statistic of Malaysia:
Spam Rate:
•   Malaysia is seeing a similar trend with the global spam rate in September 2012 with an increase of 2.4 percentage point, to 75.2 percent, from August 2012.
Virus Rate
•   Malaysia is seeing a similar increasing trend as the global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic in September 2012, with an increase to 1 in 369.8 emails in September 2012, as compared to 1 in 447.8 in August 2012.
The full September 2012 edition of the Symantec Intelligence Report can be downloaded below.
[Download PDF]– Symantec Intelligence Report, September 2012 edition
