A gift? For me? Why, thank you

With smartphones around(that's probably online all day, everyday), the world is but a tap away from people. People can pretty much do everything with their smartphones. Messaging and calling locally or overseas, playing games, video chatting, watching and/or streaming videos or music, and even shopping! The world can basically be at your fingertips.

Today, let's focus on shopping and messaging. A fairly recent Android SMS virus has been reported to spread globally through SMS. This virus is said to disguise itseld as an Amazon Rewards app.

How does Gazon spread?
Gazon can infect a user when they receive a SMS like on the image below. And also, the SMS would probably come from a person on the user's contact list. So maybe the user would not hesitate to click the SMS message's URL link.

sample Gazon SMS message

Gazon's SMS message will contain a URL link that will leads to a malicious website which would ask the user to take a survey in order to claim their reward from Amazon. If the user proceeds on taking the survey, the site will then ask the user to download an apk(be it a game or something else) or take another survey. The virus will cause the user to gain money for him because the virus creator will be paid whenever a person clicks his ads or participates in his surveys. While the user is distracted by the survey and ads, the virus will secretly use the user's contacts and sends a SMS message of the same characteristics as the user's received SMS message.

If the user clicks on the URL that received through their SMS message

Article Ref: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/03/06/gazon-android-virus-smses-everyone/, http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/34707/malware/worm-gazon-android-malware.html and