Japanese police bust poker-playing IT boss for Android malware

Android malware

Japanese police bust poker-playing IT boss for Android malwarePolice in the Chiba Prefectural zone of Japan have arrested nine people suspected of making nearly $4m by distributing malware that harvested mobile user's contact information and using it for a fake dating website.

The arrests came after a joint operation between the police and Symantec, and the security company reports that the possible ringleader of the group is Masaaki Kagawa, president of IT firm Koei Planning and a semi-professional poker player who has netted over $1.5m in winnings from tournament play over in the last six years.

Since 2007 he's competed in a variety of games on the international poker circuit in London, Las Vegas, Monte Carlo, and Australia, with some success and the occasional massive loss. If convicted, however, Kagawa won't be playing high-stakes poker for some time to come.

Kagawa and his associates are accused of using a wide variety of applications to spread the Android malware, Enesoluty, across third-party Android apps forums via 150 hosted domains. The malware harvested the email addresses of its victims, and it seems these were used to drive traffic to a phony dating website.

Japanese police bust poker-playing IT boss for Android malware | The Register