Over in China, Google Play only has a limited presence, and as such many independent Android app stores have appeared in the country due to the popularity of Android devices. However it appears that a new virus has been discovered that has apparently already affected in excess of half a million Android devices, and is capable of making unauthorised payments, and that virus is known as SMSZombie.

According to a report over on The Next Web, anti-virus specialist TrustGo discovered the SMSZombie malware that is said to be able to access bank and card details, past bill and payment history and make payments, and the said virus was first discovered back on the 25th of July, whilst TrustGo claims they are the first to locate the virus and offer a method to remove the malware that apparently ‘barricades’ itself into affected devices.

Word is apps infected with SMSZombie have been found in one of China’s most prominent app stores, GFan, along with other places and word has it SMSZombie has infected over 500,000 Android users thus far, and although that’s not that big a quantity when you consider China Mobile has 683 million subscribers, the malware does have the opportunity to cause trouble for quite a few with unauthorised transactions.

Apparently ThrustGo states that the creators of SMSZombie have managed to avoid attention by users large bills, and thus far have recharged accounts for such things as online gaming sites and other services simply by making ‘relatively low’ deposits via infected smartphones.

The virus lurks in wallpaper apps and activates post-download, and then access the user’s SMS functionality and then exploits a vulnerability in the SMS payment gateway of China Mobile, and TrustGo says infected users can make use of their suite of mobile security app that scan for viruses in real time, and is available from Google Play, or they can hit up Here, where they can gain details on how to remove the SMSZombie malware.