PROVIDED BY CNNNEXT.COM ADSENSE VIRUS ON PUBLISHER ADS, PUBLISHERS ARE VICTIMS, Security experts are warning Android users of a well-known banking trojan which is being spread by the Google AdSense network, meaning users only need to visit a legitimate site to get infected.

Kaspersky Lab malware analysts Mikhail Kuzin and Nikita Buchka explained in a blog post yesterday that the Svpeng trojan was infecting visitors to a popular banking portal without the need to follow malicious links.

This isn’t the first example of such a campaign.

The duo claimed that the Meduza news portal was forced to disable AdSense after unwittingly serving up an earlier version of the trojan to visitors.rnrn“The Svpeng family of banking Trojans has long been known to Kaspersky Lab and possesses a standard set of malicious functions,” they wrote.

“After being installed and launching, it disappears from the list of installed apps and requests the device’s admin rights (to make it harder for antivirus software or the user to remove it).”The trojan is designed to steal bank card data via phishing windows and intercept, delete and send SMS messages in order to attack mobile banking systems that rely on texts to communicate information.