Browsing tag
Google on Monday revealed that almost 200,000 app submissions to its Play Store for Android were either rejected or remediated to address issues with access to sensitive data such as location or SMS messages over the past year. The tech giant also said it blocked 333,000 bad accounts from the app storefront in 2023 for […]
An active Android malware campaign dubbed eXotic Visit has been primarily targeting users in South Asia, particularly those in India and Pakistan, with malware distributed via dedicated websites and Google Play Store. Slovak cybersecurity firm said the activity, ongoing since November 2021, is not linked to any known threat actor or group. It’s tracking the […]
Several malicious Android apps that turn mobile devices running the operating system into residential proxies (RESIPs) for other threat actors have been observed on the Google Play Store. The findings come from HUMAN’s Satori Threat Intelligence team, which said the cluster of VPN apps came fitted with a Golang library that transformed the user’s device […]
The Android banking trojan known as Anatsa has expanded its focus to include Slovakia, Slovenia, and Czechia as part of a new campaign observed in November 2023. “Some of the droppers in the campaign successfully exploited the accessibility service, despite Google Play’s enhanced detection and protection mechanisms,” ThreatFabric said in a report shared with The […]
Android smartphone users in India are the target of a new malware campaign that employs social engineering lures to install fraudulent apps that are capable of harvesting sensitive data. “Using social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, attackers are sending messages designed to lure users into installing a malicious app on their mobile device by […]
Spyware masquerading as modified versions of Telegram have been spotted in the Google Play Store that’s designed to harvest sensitive information from compromised Android devices. According to Kaspersky security researcher Igor Golovin, the apps come with nefarious features to capture and exfiltrate names, user IDs, contacts, phone numbers, and chat messages to an actor-controlled server. […]
Threat actors are using Android Package (APK) files with unknown or unsupported compression methods to elude malware analysis. That’s according to findings from Zimperium, which found 3,300 artifacts leveraging such compression algorithms in the wild. 71 of the identified samples can be loaded on the operating system without any problems. There is no evidence that […]
Threat actors are leveraging a technique called versioning to evade Google Play Store’s malware detections and target Android users. “Campaigns using versioning commonly target users’ credentials, data, and finances,” Google Cybersecurity Action Team (GCAT) said in its August 2023 Threat Horizons Report shared with The Hacker News. While versioning is not a new phenomenon, it’s […]
Two file management apps on the Google Play Store have been discovered to be spyware, putting the privacy and security of up to 1.5 million Android users at risk. These apps engage in deceptive behaviour and secretly send sensitive user data to malicious servers in China. Pradeo, a leading mobile security company, has uncovered this […]
Individuals in the Pakistan region have been targeted using two rogue Android apps available on the Google Play Store as part of a new targeted campaign. Cybersecurity firm Cyfirma attributed the campaign with moderate confidence to a threat actor known as DoNot Team, which is also tracked as APT-C-35 and Viceroy Tiger. The espionage activity […]
A new Android subscription malware named Fleckpe has been unearthed on the Google Play Store, amassing more than 620,000 downloads in total since 2022. Kaspersky, which identified 11 apps on the official app storefront, said the malware masqueraded as legitimate photo editing apps, camera, and smartphone wallpaper packs. The apps have since been taken down. […]
Malicious loader programs capable of trojanizing Android applications are being traded on the criminal underground for up to $20,000 as a way to evade Google Play Store defenses. “The most popular application categories to hide malware and unwanted software include cryptocurrency trackers, financial apps, QR-code scanners, and even dating apps,” Kaspersky said in a new […]
Five malicious dropper Android apps with over 130,000 cumulative installations have been discovered on the Google Play Store distributing banking trojans like SharkBot and Vultur, which are capable of stealing financial data and performing on-device fraud. “These droppers continue the unstopping evolution of malicious apps sneaking to the official store,” Dutch mobile security firm ThreatFabric […]
As many as 16 malicious apps with over 20 million cumulative downloads have been taken down from the Google Play Store after they were caught committing mobile ad fraud. The Clicker malware masqueraded as seemingly harmless utilities like cameras, currency/unit converters, QR code readers, note-taking apps, and dictionaries, among others, in a bid to trick […]
In a sign that malicious actors continue to find ways to work around Google Play Store security protections, researchers have spotted a previously undocumented Android dropper trojan that’s currently in development. “This new malware tries to abuse devices using a novel technique, not seen before in Android malware, to spread the extremely dangerous Xenomorph banking […]
Google has taken steps to ax dozens of fraudulent apps from the official Play Store that were spotted propagating Joker, Facestealer, and Coper malware families through the virtual marketplace. While the Android storefront is considered to be a trusted source for discovering and installing apps, bad actors have repeatedly found ways to sneak past security […]
A number of rogue Android apps that have been cumulatively installed from the official Google Play Store more than 50,000 times are being used to target banks and other financial entities. The rental banking trojan, dubbed Octo, is said to be a rebrand of another Android malware called ExobotCompact, which, in turn, is a “lite” […]
A new set of malicious Android apps have been caught posing as app security scanners on the official Play Store to distribute a backdoor capable of gathering sensitive information. “These malicious apps urge users to update Chrome, WhatsApp, or a PDF reader, yet instead of updating the app in question, they take full control of […]
The emergence of a new Android malware, known as xHelper, has caught the attention of digital forensics experts and antivirus firms due to a dangerous mechanism that allows it to reinstall itself on the infected device, making it almost impossible to remove. The first reports of xHelper infections were filed in March, starting with a […]
Google Play Store policies clearly state that Android apps cannot update or modify from third party sources other than Google Play Store themselves. But a report suggests that the UC browser went ahead and violated Google Play Store policies. The popular browser, with over 600 million downloads, made its users vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks […]
Do you still own a flashlight app on your Android smartphone? If that’s a yes, then your personal data might be at high risk. After studying over hundreds of flashlight apps, Avast Security Researcher, Luis Corrons, discovered these Android apps ask for an insane amount of unwanted permissions — average being of 25 permissions per […]