Hernan Garcia

The Trojan penetrates Android-based smartphones disguised as an ordinary application, says Kaspersky. Users are prompted to install a small file of around 13 KB that has the standard Android extension .APK. But once the "app" is installed on the device, the Trojan bundled with it begins texting premium rate phone numbers (those that charge). The criminals are actually the ones operating these numbers, so they end up collecting the money via charges to the victims' accounts.

From Russia, With Love

According to Denis Maslennikov, Senior Malware Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, there's not an exact number of infected devices available at present, but the outbreak is currently regional. For now, only Russian Android users can actually lose money after installing the Trojan, but anyone can be infected.

The Trojan-SMS category of malware is relatively common in the mobile ecosystem, but this is the first to specifically target Android-based devices. However, FakePlayer is not the first malware designed for Android, says the firm, as there have been isolated incidents of Android devices infected with spyware, the earliest occurring in 2009.

The choice of targeting Android devices in particular should come as no surprise to those following mobile industry trends. Given Android's meteoric rise in market share, it's no surprise to Kaspersky, either:

"The IT market research and analysis organization IDC has noted that those selling devices running Android are experiencing the highest growth in sales among smartphone manufacturers," says Maslennikov. "As a result, we can expect to see a corresponding rise in the amount of malware targeting that platform."

Does Android Need AV?

The release of a Trojan disguised as an app is an inventive way to get malware onto mobile devices. In this case, the Trojan takes advantage of Google Android's openness - this operating system isn't tied to a closely managed and "curated" marketplace of approved applications like the iPhone is with iTunes. Although Google does step in to remove apps from its Market when security concerns are present, nothing prevents developers - especially nefarious ones like these - from forgoing official channels and publishing their own apps elsewhere, then tricking users into installing them.

But even if the Trojan came through backdoor channels, it's at least a small blow for an OS with security at the forefront of its design.

The security firm says it plans to release a version of Kaspersky Mobile Security for the Android operating system in 2011.

We can already picture the Apple vs. Android TV ads now: "iPhones aren't susceptible to the viruses plaguing Android phones..." Justin Long will smugly state. Now, who will play "Android guy?"

Hugo ChávezRecent accounts of Hugo Chávez's politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830. According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart—even as Chávez tweeted the proceedings for his audience—and some teeth and bone fragments were taken away for testing. The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chávez government's seal. In one of the rather free-associating speeches for which he has become celebrated, Chávez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate Bolívar's constituent parts. He went on:

I had some doubts, but after seeing his remains, my heart said, "Yes, it is me." Father, is that you, or who are you? The answer: "It is me, but I awaken every hundred years when the people awaken."

As if "channeling" this none-too-subtle identification of Chávez with the national hero, Venezuelan television was compelled to run images of Bolívar, followed by footage of the remains, and then pictures of the boss. The national anthem provided the soundtrack. Not since North Korean media declared Kim Jong-il to be the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung has there been such a blatant attempt to create a necrocracy, or perhaps mausolocracy, in which a living claimant assumes the fleshly mantle of the departed.

Simón Bolívar's cadaver is like any other cadaver, but his legacy is a great deal more worth stealing than that of Kim Il Sung. Gabriel García Márquez's novel The General in His Labyrinth is one place to begin, if you want to understand the combination of heroic and tragic qualities that keep his memory alive to this day. (In New York, his equestrian statue still dominates the intersection of the Avenue of the Americas and Central Park South.) The idea of a United States of South America will always be a tenuous dream, but in his bloody struggle for its realization, Bolívar cut a considerable figure, as he did in his other capacities as double-dealer, war criminal, and serial fornicator, also lovingly portrayed by Márquez.

In the fall of 2008, I went to Venezuela as a guest of Sean Penn's, whose friendship with Chávez is warm. The third member of our party was the excellent historian Douglas Brinkley, and we spent some quality time flying around the country on Chávez's presidential jet and bouncing with him from rally to rally at ground level, as well. The boss loves to talk and has clocked up speeches of Castro-like length. Bolívar is the theme of which he never tires. His early uniformed movement of mutineers—which failed to bring off a military coup in 1992—was named for Bolívar. Turning belatedly but successfully to electoral politics, he called his followers the Bolivarian Movement. Since he became president, the country's official name has been the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. (Chávez must sometimes wish that he had been born in Bolivia in the first place.) At Cabinet meetings, he has been known to leave an empty chair, in case the shade of Bolívar might choose to attend the otherwise rather Chávez-dominated proceedings.

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