Zombie Smartphones. Is It A Reason To Worry? – Semalt Point Of View

Hackers and spammers have succeeded in creating networks of zombie smartphones. There are chances that your mobile device will be infected without your knowledge and you might lose the data in no time. Botnets have reportedly affected a large number of computers and mobile phones in recent months. Ross Barber, the Semalt expert, says that spammers and hackers try to trick the mobile users in one way or the other and are crazy to make money from extortion. Hundreds to thousands of machines are running botnet software all over the world, and many of the incidences have been reported in the United States. Fortunately, no case of botnet being run on mobile phones has ever been reported. Security company Symantec has its headquarters in California. Experts of this company claim that programs known as Sexy Space are the bad bots developed by hackers for smartphone users.

Unsafe messages

Sexy Space sends text messages to a large number of users, attracting them to a hot and beautiful girl on the internet. The messages contain links, and that girl asks you to click those links to download her latest pictures. If you click those links and send the same message to your friends, the data and sensitive information stored on your smartphone are likely to get hacked.

A large number of SMS viruses have been sent to users around the globe, but Sexy Space is an unusual and new threat that communicates with the central servers and controls the activities of a large number of computer and mobile devices. Hackers take over the control of your smartphone, spreading botnets in it and creating a mess for you. If the network of infected smartphones responds to a remote command, it is called true botnets.

Symantec's director of security Zulfikar Ramzan claims that there is no information about how Sexy Space works and how it infects the smartphones worldwide. But one thing that's common on all devices is that it converts them into mobile botnets.

Network threats

Ben Feinstein from Secure Works says that PCs and smartphones are being converted into botnets on a daily basis. He works as a computer engineer, and the firm is located in Georgia. Mobile botnets may cause serious threats to users in future. For instance, experts have proved that spammers can disable parts of your smartphone by flooding it with useless text messages. An infected device is then used to alter data in a clean computer network. A team of experts at Errata Security has stated that the hackers are mainly attacking iPhones via Sexy Space messages. This firm primarily operates in Atlanta and has its sub-offices and branches across the world. The same team of experts also says that infected iPhones are being used to change the infrastructure of WiFi networks. Even when you have installed an antivirus program, you may not be able to protect your mobile device as the spam starts in the form of messages; and the messages cannot be stopped until you block the ID of the senders. The local wireless systems and computer devices have also been infected with this virus. A criminal hacker can use Sexy Space to break into the companies' internal computer networks.