An anonymous reader writes: Over 500, 000 people have downloaded an Android app called “Guide for Pokemon Go” that roots the devices in order to deliver ads and installs apps without the user’s knowledge. Researchers that analyzed the malware said it contained multiple defenses that made reverse-engineering very difficult — some of the most advanced they’ve seen — which explains why it managed to fool Google’s security scanner and end up on the official Play Store. The exploits contained in the app’s rooting functions were able to root any Android released between 2012 and 2015. The trojan found inside the app was also found in nine other apps, affecting another 100, 000 users. The crook behind this trojan was obviously riding various popularity waves, packing his malware in clones for whatever app or game is popular at one particular point in time. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Over 500K People Have Installed a Pokemon Go-Related App That Roots and Hijacks Android Devices
“Microsoft can’t tell North from South on Bing Maps, ” joked The Register, reporting that Microsoft’s site had “misplaced Melbourne, the four-million-inhabitant capital of the Australian State of Victoria.” Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: Though they’re trying to minimise it, the recent relocation of Melbourne Australia to the ocean east of Japan in Microsoft’s flagship mapping application is blamed on someone having flipped a sign in the latitude given for the city’s Wikipedia page. Which may or may not be true. But the simple stupidity of using a globally-editable data source for feeding a mapping and navigation system is … “awesome” is (for once) an appropriate word. Well, it’s Bing, so at least no-one was actually using it. “Bing’s not alone in finding Australia hard to navigate, ” reports The Register. “In 2012 police warned not to use Apple Maps as it directed those seeking the rural Victorian town of Mildura into the middle of a desert.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.