[link to www.cnet.com]

Android devices are under siege by yet another breed of malware.

Dubbed Viking Horde, the new malware has waged war by infecting certain apps at the Google Play store, researchers at Check Point said Monday. Affected apps include Viking Jump, Parrot Copter, Memory Booster, Simple 2048 and WiFi Plus.

A new strain of malware is targeting Android devices via infected apps at the Google Play app store, says security firm Check Point.
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[link to blog.checkpoint.com]

On all devices — rooted or not — Viking Horde creates a botnet that uses proxied IP addresses to disguise ad clicks, generating revenue for the attacker. A botnet is a group of devices controlled by hackers without the knowledge of their owners. The bots are used for various reasons based on the distributed computing capabilities of all the devices. The larger the botnet, the greater its capabilities.

On rooted devices, Viking Horde delivers additional malware payloads that can execute any code remotely, potentially compromising the security of data on the device. It also takes advantage of root access privileges to make itself difficult or even impossible to remove manually.