{"id":26683,"date":"2013-06-25T10:39:08","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T17:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=26683"},"modified":"2025-08-11T22:49:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T05:49:24","slug":"mobile-malware-plays-hide-and-seek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/mobile-security\/mobile-malware-plays-hide-and-seek\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile Malware Plays Hide and Seek"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Android\/Obad.A is mobile malware that has been described as very complex. Truly it is one of the most complex we&#8217;ve seen because it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Uses Bluetooth to infect other Android devices<\/li>\n<li>Accepts commands from the attacker<\/li>\n<li>Hides from the Device Administration list<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is a good collection of malicious activities for a modern piece of malware. Is it unique, though? No, other mobile malware has propagated via Bluetooth, as early as SymbOS\/Cabir. Earlier mobile botnets on Symbian, Windows Mobile, and even Android have also accepted commands from attackers&#8217; control servers. That last item, though, disappearing from a standard listing makes Android\/Obad a bit more insidious.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Hidden apps: unwelcome guests?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>If you can&#8217;t find it, you can&#8217;t remove it. Nearly every other piece of Android malware that doesn&#8217;t have root access can be found and discovered. Android\/Obad uses a vulnerability that keeps it off the standard Device Administration list. The vulnerability isn&#8217;t yet closed, so it&#8217;s very likely we&#8217;ll see other malware authors start to exploit it.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Peek-a-boo, I see you<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Fortunately, we have added hidden-app detection capabilities to the latest edition of our McAfee Mobile Innovations app (MMI). The MMI app hosts a bunch of our other new beta features as well. Protecting private data (Data Vault), letting your devices warn you before you lose them (Smart Perimeter), and a tool to avoid dangerous QR codes (Safe QR Reader).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00a0Select &#8220;Hidden Device Administrator Applications&#8221; from McAfee Mobile Innovations menu.<\/p>\n<p>The Hidden Device Administrator Detector searches and finds all apps that have Device Admin access, even if they&#8217;re using the vulnerability to hide from the Android OS. Once you run it, it will give you a list of all hidden Device Admin apps and the option to deactivate or remove them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A list of all detected Administrator Apps.<\/p>\n<p>Malware attempting to hide via vulnerabilities face a short life. As soon as software publishers fix the bugs in their software or antimalware apps add detection and removal, their time is up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Android\/Obad.A is mobile malware that has been described as very complex. Truly it is one of the most complex we&#8217;ve&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":674,"featured_media":124276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1838,442],"tags":[37,214],"coauthors":[3973],"class_list":["post-26683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile-security","category-mcafee-labs","tag-android","tag-mobile-security1"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mobile Malware Plays Hide and Seek | McAfee Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Android\/Obad.A is mobile malware that has been described as very complex. Truly it is one of the most complex we&#039;ve seen because it: Uses Bluetooth to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mobile Malware Plays Hide and Seek | McAfee Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Android\/Obad.A is mobile malware that has been described as very complex. 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