Vodafone Sold 3000 Malware-Laden HTC Magic Handsets

Vodafone Spain, the second largest telecom services provider in the country, has reported that the company had shipped around 3000 HTC Magic smartphones with memory cards infected with malware that went on to infect the PCs of the users.

The malware problem first came to light when a person working at Panda Security plugged in a newly purchased HTC Magic to his computer, only to trigger an anti-virus alert on his Windows Computer.

After an exhaustive examination of the device, it was revealed that the 8GB memory card of the popular Android based smartphones contained a malware belonging to the Mariposa botnet, a Conficker worm and a password stealing software developed for Lineage Games.

Speaking to PC World magazine, a Vodafone Spain spokesperson said in a statement that “We will obviously fully investigate this and make sure that any necessary changes to our security policies are put in place.”

Interestingly, the malware problem only affects HTC Magic smartphones sold in Spain, making it all the more dubious as now it seems that the phones were infected by perpetrators within Vodafone Spain. 

The Mariposa botnet, which was rendered useless sometime back, was infamous for stealing banking details and other sensitive data from users.