151 isn’t the biggest number in the world, but it’s not the smallest either. 10.5 million? That’s a big number indeed and where we are going with this is that there in an ongoing fraud campaign making its way around the web right now called Ultima SMS that people should be made aware of given the sheer scale of it and just how many people could be affected. 151 is the number of Android apps that this campaign has been identified with (so far) and that 10.5 million figure is the number of times those specific apps have been downloaded. Most malware is much more deliberately malicious, but that’s not to take away from the seriousness of Ultima SMS and why people should be made aware of it (and why we’re choosing to make it our subject this week). Here at 4GoodHosting we’re like any good Canadian web hosting provider in that we know that people don’t like surprises when they’re the type that end up costing them more money. That’s what makes the Ultima SMS subscription scam so noteworthy – it upgrades users to premium subscription memberships without them being aware of it. Now the question obviously becomes what would be their gain in doing this. They get a cut from the monies gained by increasing subscription rates involuntarily. Instead let’s look at those very newsworthy scam, as security concerns related to apps downloaded 10+ million times definitely makes it newsworthy. Gone – Just Not Quickly Enough The good news here is that Google wasted no time in removing the apps, but those multi-million downloads have worked out to millions of dollars in fraudulent subscription charges already. The way they drew unsuspecting users to the bait was with discount apps, games, custom keyboards, QR code scanners, video and photo editors, spam call blockers, camera filters, and more. Once one of the affected apps was launched for the first time and using mobile data, the location and IMEI is changed to match the language of the country. The app would then prompt the user to enter their mobile phone number and email address to become aware of the program's features...
