Google denies Android botnet report. MS researcher guessed at source.

[techbeck]

Yesterday, we told you how a Microsoft anti-spam engineer claimed to have found a network of Android devices designed to send spam. Today, it looks like that report might have just been an educated guess. While the emails do indeed say "Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android," Google says its own analysis points a different direction. "The evidence does not support the Android botnet claim," the company wrote in a statement. "Our analysis suggests that spammers are using infected computers and a fake mobile signature to bypass anti-spam mechanisms in the email platform they're using."

More importantly, the security researchers who initially outed the botnet are now admitting that they actually don't know for sure. Terry Zink, the Microsoft researcher who originally wrote the report, now says that he considered that the messages could have been spoofed, but decided that it simply made more sense for them to have come from Android. Chet Wisniewski, a Sophos security advisor who suggested that users should install Sophos Mobile Security to avoid being infected by an app that could send this kind of spam, told The Wall Street Journal that "we don't know for sure that it's coming from Android devices."

Yahoo told The Register that it's investigating the issue.

There's still a definite possibility that this is indeed an Android botnet of some sort, and both researchers claim the evidence points that direction, but we're far less certain than we were before, and a little less trusting, too.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/5/3140108/google-denies-android-botnet-report

[deleted_acc]

so Google lies... not the first one, barely the last

[Boz]

so Google lies... not the first one, barely the last

How in the hell did you conclude that Google lies out of that article? :huh: The guys who did the report were speculative and tried to sell the information as misleading guess and not facts, not Google. Geez.

[Ryoken]

To summarize..

Neither side knows how it's happening, and both are just guessing..

[techbeck]

so Google lies... not the first one, barely the last

Read the article before posting next time.

[techbeck]

To summarize..

Neither side knows how it's happening, and both are just guessing..

Pretty much. That engineer shouldnt of guessed tho.

[deleted_acc]

Read the article before posting next time.

i did... the speculative nature of yesterday's article does not account for the continuously growing android malware scene; since aug 2011 there are more and more reports of these kinds so MAYBE the researcher was premature to shout wolf in this case (i would suggest waiting for yahoo and others to look into it) but nevertheless the problem is real, by denying google does the same apple did for years; considering these and the crappy update method google use anyone who says people are idiots, noobs etc are as big an ******* as somebody can get - it's google's job to maintain security of the os and the marketplace - or let us block any and all android devices, i can live with that too

[techbeck]

i did... the speculative nature of yesterday's article does not account for the continuously growing android malware scene; since aug 2011 there are more and more reports of these kinds so MAYBE the researcher was premature to shout wolf in this case (i would suggest waiting for yahoo and others to look into it) but nevertheless the problem is real, by denying google does the same apple did for years; considering these and the crappy update method google use anyone who says people are idiots, noobs etc are as big an ******* as somebody can get - it's google's job to maintain security of the os and the marketplace - or let us block any and all android devices, i can live with that too

Read the article again. Google is not denying the existence of malware. They are just deny they are the soureof this specific botnet that the MS engineer found. This article is not about the growing number of malware in Android (which was posted on the front page)