Spanish Vodafone investigates malware on HTC Magic

Vodafone would have sold an HTC Magic in Spain that is equipped with malware, claims security software maker Panda. Vodafone has indicated that it is investigating the matter, but expects it to be an incident.

The malware found is according to security software maker Panda is a Mariposa botnet client. In Spain, recently a botnet of nearly thirteen million computers infected with this malware.

The botnet client would have nestled in the autorun.inf and autorun.exe files on the HTC Magic. In addition to Mariposa, the Android phone is said to have even more malware installed: Panda found Conficker and Lineage malware on the device, with which the user’s passwords can be retrieved. Since the autorun files are executed automatically after connecting HTC Magic to PC, malware can spread right away.

The provider would have an investigation set, but still thinks it is an incident. According to Vodafone, it is possible that the infected HTC Magic was used in combination with an already used memory card, which would not have been checked for the presence of malware.