[HIB]Sophos downplays Android malware threat

[newsbot]

Android users have little reason to fear an immediate onslaught of malware despite the demonstration of a rootkit-based attack at last week's Defcon conference, according to a leading anti-virus supplier. Researchers at Spider Labs demonstrated proof-of-concept malware that could access messages and emails on an Android smartphone. Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor at Sophos who attended the presentation, was underwhelmed. He pointed out that the demo was carried out on an already jailbroken HTC Legend. And, crucially, the researchers at Spider Labs failed to explain how end users might be at risk from malware along the lines of the proof-of-concept tool developed by the Spider Labs team. "They developed a rootkit but there's no way to install it," Wisniewski told The Reg. "No method of propagation was demonstrated."

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