Mobile security vendor Lookout is warning customers that an app that pays users to send text messages on their behalf is dangerous and should be avoided.

The app, called Bazuc, proposes that users allow them to send text messages from their plan. In exchange, it offers to pay users a tenth of a penny for each message sent.

But, contrary to the claims made on the site, Lookout said its testing showed Bazuc is sending mostly bulk messages rather than text messages from international users abroad.

“It’s very clearly only being used for bulk mailing,” Lookout principal security researcher Marc Rogers told AllThingsD. “In our entire testing we only saw three messages that came from a human.”

A Bazuc representative did not immediately return a request for comment.

Rogers says the risk to those that use the app is enormous, ranging from getting angry phone calls from unhappy recipients, to seeing their phone lines cancelled to perhaps legal liability if illegal messages are sent from their account.

“It’s the user that is going to be left holding the bag,” Rogers said.

Rogers also said it is his belief that those sending the messages are being misled as to how their messages are being delivered. During testing, Rogers said the company found large businesses–even some banks–using Bazuc to send texts to customers.

For its part, Lookout says it plans to warn those of its customers that have Bazuc installed as well as to notify carriers as well as those that are using the other end of the service.

Lookout said it believes between 10,000 and 50,000 people downloaded it from the Google Play store alone.

The app, which had been on app stores including Google Play, has since been pulled, though Bazuc still has the Apple App Store and Google Play logos on its site.

Bazuc still offers it via its Web site (and as of Thursday afternoon, the company was actively trying to force it down to the computers of some of those visiting the site).

via AllThingsD » Mobile http://allthingsd.com/20131219/lookout-warns-app-that-pays-for-unused-text-messages-is-a-big-time-security-threat/