“Businesses referred to as ‘Malware HQs’ accounted for more than half the overall mobile malware detections by Lookout during the first six months of this year. Malware HQs openly recruit ‘affiliates’ that could be anyone and provide simple do-it-yourself tools to distribute viruses with tactics such as booby-trapped websites or Twitter posts. Once on smartphones, viruses fire off premium text messages behind the scenes, with HQs getting the money and sharing it with affiliates who hooked the victims. ‘We’ve seen evidence that these affiliate marketers have earned between $700 a month to $12,000 a month from these scams,’ Smith said.”
