Police shut down Android app that turned smartphones into proxies

[Chewy_fox]

Spanish police have seized servers and arrested the operators of an Android app designed to broadcast pirate video streams, but which also secretly sold users’ personal data and ensnared smartphones into proxy and DDoS botnets.

Named Mobdro, the app was downloaded more than 100 million times, according to Spanish National Police.

Although on its official websites, the app used benign descriptions, once installed, it allowed users to access and view pirated video streams, usually for online sporting events.

Spanish officials said they began an investigation into the app in 2018 after receiving complaints from the English Premier League, the Spanish Football League, and other creative associations.

Starting last month, investigators began cracking down on the app’s authors, with the help of Europol, Interpol, Eurojust, and authorities in Andorra.

These efforts targeted the operation’s leader, a former Spanish citizen relocated to Andorra, and three engineers, and included the following:

Three house searches (2 in Spain and 1 in Andorra)

Four arrests (3 in Spain and 1 in Andorra) 

Four court orders to take down domains

20 web domains and servers blocked

Bank accounts frozen 

One server was taken down in Portugal, and another one under investigation in Czechia

Investigators said the Spanish company behind the app and server infrastructure made more than €5 million, based on seized documents.

The profits primarily came from showing ads inside the app and selling users’ personal data to online advertisers.

But Spanish authorities said that “with the progress of the investigation,” their agents also identified another source of revenue that consisted of enrolling user devices into another company’s network.

According to Spanish and Europol officials, this unnamed company used the devices as proxy bots in its anonymization offering and for DDoS attacks.

However, industry experts to whom The Record spoke today were not surprised by these revelations. The app was always considered high-risk, as it was never submitted and distributed through the official Google Play Store, and a 2019 Digital Citizens report [PDF] firmly classified it as malware, even warning about features in its code that could be abused to ensnare devices into a botnet.

[Silent Watcher]

Avoid unnecessary posts such as 'Thank you', 'Welcome', etc. Such posts will be deleted and user will be warned if it happens again. If caught spamming, the following actions are applicable -

• First time - Warning
• Second time - 5000 Points will be deducted
• Third time - Ban for 7 days
• Fourth time - Permanent Ban

If the post helped you, reward the user by reacting to the post like this -