Animal Hacktivist Goes After ‘Dog Wars’
Sends text message to friends of ‘game’ users
The hack attack looks just like you’re downloading a real app. (Note: the hacker is not associated with the animal rights group PETA.)
There’s something quite satisfying about the idea of a virus called “Rabies” infecting the smart phones of people who subscribe to the infamous Dogwars app.
Recently identified by the anti-virus company Symantec, the Trojan virus that they’ve named Android.Dogowar pops up a message on the screen of any lowlife who downloads the older version of this app and asks them to click on a button to install the game. But as soon as they click on it, Rabies grabs a list of all the person’s contacts and sends each of them a text message saying:
““I take pleasure in hurting small animals, just thought you should know that.”
“The ultimate goal of hacktivism is to draw attention, and it’s been very effective,” said Kevin Haley, a director with Symantec Security Response. “More of this malware will be seen down the road. Success breeds more success in this world. The fact that is that it’s successful, that it’s gotten awareness because it’s so clever. That will bring more attention to their cause.”
Read more about the Rabies attack at the technology site CRN.