According to a report from the BBC, a 20-year-old French hacker has defrauded over 17,000 people with his custom-developed trojan disguised as legitimate smartphone applications, earning him approximately half a million euros. When he was arrested in Amiens in northern France late last week, he reportedly admitted to the crimes, saying that he was not driven by greed but rather his ambitions to become a software developer.

The hacker had disguised his trojan as several popular mobile applications and provided them to download for free. When a user downloaded one of the malicious applications, it would send a text message to a premium-rate number without the user's knowledge. Some of the applications also harvested login credentials for gambling and gaming sites. Most of the applications were apparently created for Google's Android mobile operating system.

(fab)