Google is unveiling a set of new features in Android 15 to prevent malicious apps installed on the device from capturing sensitive data.
This constitutes an update to the Play Integrity API that third-party app developers can take advantage of to secure their applications against malware.
"Developers can check if there are other apps running that could be capturing the screen, creating
Malicious Android apps masquerading as Google, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and X (formerly Twitter) have been observed to steal users' credentials from compromised devices.
"This malware uses famous Android app icons to mislead users and trick victims into installing the malicious app on their devices," the SonicWall Capture Labs threat research team said in a recent report.
The
Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in various applications and system components within Xiaomi devices running Android.
"The vulnerabilities in Xiaomi led to access to arbitrary activities, receivers and services with system privileges, theft of arbitrary files with system privileges, [and] disclosure of phone, settings and Xiaomi account data," mobile security firm
Several popular Android applications available in Google Play Store are susceptible to a path traversal-affiliated vulnerability codenamed the Dirty Stream attack that could be exploited by a malicious app to overwrite arbitrary files in the vulnerable app's home directory.
"The implications of this vulnerability pattern include arbitrary code execution and token theft,
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a previously undocumented malware targeting Android devices that uses compromised WordPress sites as relays for its actual command-and-control (C2) servers for detection evasion.
The malware, codenamed Wpeeper, is an ELF binary that leverages the HTTPS protocol to secure its C2 communications.
"Wpeeper is a typical backdoor Trojan for Android
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 attempting to distribute malware or for repeated policy violations.
"In 2023,
Fake browser updates are being used to push a previously undocumented Android malware called Brokewell.
"Brokewell is a typical modern banking malware equipped with both data-stealing and remote-control capabilities built into the malware," Dutch security firm ThreatFabric said in an analysis published Thursday.
The malware is said to be in active development,
A new Android trojan called SoumniBot has been detected in the wild targeting users in South Korea by leveraging weaknesses in the manifest extraction and parsing procedure.
The malware is "notable for an unconventional approach to evading analysis and detection, namely obfuscation of the Android manifest," Kaspersky researcher Dmitry Kalinin said in a technical analysis.
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 group behind the operation under the
Human rights activists in Morocco and the Western Sahara region are the targets of a new threat actor that leverages phishing attacks to trick victims into installing bogus Android apps and serve credential harvesting pages for Windows users.
Cisco Talos is tracking the activity cluster under the name Starry Addax, describing it as primarily singling out activists associated with
Google has announced support for what's called a V8 Sandbox in the Chrome web browser in an effort to address memory corruption issues.
The sandbox, according to V8 security technical lead Samuel Groß, aims to prevent "memory corruption in V8 from spreading within the host process."
The search behemoth has described V8 Sandbox as a lightweight, in-process sandbox
Google has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against two app developers for allegedly engaging in an "international online consumer investment fraud scheme" that tricked users into downloading bogus Android apps from the Google Play Store and other sources and stealing their funds under the guise of promising higher returns.
The individuals in question are Yunfeng Sun (aka Alphonse Sun) and Hongnam
Google has disclosed that two Android security flaws impacting its Pixel smartphones have been exploited in the wild by forensic companies.
The high-severity zero-day vulnerabilities are as follows -
CVE-2024-29745 - An information disclosure flaw in the bootloader component
CVE-2024-29748 - A privilege escalation flaw in the firmware component
"There are indications that 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 into a proxy node without their knowledge.
The Android banking trojan known as Vultur has resurfaced with a suite of new features and improved anti-analysis and detection evasion techniques, enabling its operators to remotely interact with a mobile device and harvest sensitive data.
"Vultur has also started masquerading more of its malicious activity by encrypting its C2 communication, using multiple encrypted payloads that are decrypted
The threat actors behind the PixPirate Android banking trojan are leveraging a new trick to evade detection on compromised devices and harvest sensitive information from users in Brazil.
The approach allows it to hide the malicious app’s icon from the home screen of the victim’s device, IBM said in a technical report published today.
“Thanks to this new technique, during PixPirate reconnaissance
Cybercriminals are using a network of hired money mules in India using an Android-based application to orchestrate a massive money laundering scheme.
The malicious application, called XHelper, is a "key tool for onboarding and managing these money mules," CloudSEK researchers Sparsh Kulshrestha, Abhishek Mathew, and Santripti Bhujel said in a report.
Details about the scam
Cybersecurity researchers have identified two authentication bypass flaws in open-source Wi-Fi software found in Android, Linux, and ChromeOS devices that could trick users into joining a malicious clone of a legitimate network or allow an attacker to join a trusted network without a password.
The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2023-52160 and CVE-2023-52161, have been discovered following a
Hackers backed by Iran and Hezbollah staged cyber attacks designed to undercut public support for the Israel-Hamas war after October 2023.
This includes destructive attacks against key Israeli organizations, hack-and-leak operations targeting entities in Israel and the U.S., phishing campaigns designed to steal intelligence, and information operations to turn public opinion against Israel.
Iran
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 Hacker News.
A Chinese-speaking threat actor codenamed GoldFactory has been attributed to the development of highly sophisticated banking trojans, including a previously undocumented iOS malware called GoldPickaxe that's capable of harvesting identity documents, facial recognition data, and intercepting SMS.
"The GoldPickaxe family is available for both iOS and Android platforms,"
Threat hunters have identified a new variant of Android malware called MoqHao that automatically executes on infected devices without requiring any user interaction.
"Typical MoqHao requires users to install and launch the app to get their desired purpose, but this new variant requires no execution," McAfee Labs said in a report published this week. "While the app is
Google has unveiled a new pilot program in Singapore that aims to prevent users from sideloading certain apps that abuse Android app permissions to read one-time passwords and gather sensitive data.
"This enhanced fraud protection will analyze and automatically block the installation of apps that may use sensitive runtime permissions frequently abused for financial fraud when the user attempts
Several public and popular libraries abandoned but still used in Java and Android applications have been found susceptible to a new software supply chain attack method called MavenGate.
"Access to projects can be hijacked through domain name purchases and since most default build configurations are vulnerable, it would be difficult or even impossible to know whether an attack was being performed
A new Android backdoor has been discovered with potent capabilities to carry out a range of malicious actions on infected devices.
Dubbed Xamalicious by the McAfee Mobile Research Team, the malware is so named for the fact that it's developed using an open-source mobile app framework called Xamarin and abuses the operating system's accessibility permissions to fulfill its objectives.
Indian government entities and the defense sector have been targeted by a phishing campaign that's engineered to drop Rust-based malware for intelligence gathering.
The activity, first detected in October 2023, has been codenamed Operation RusticWeb by enterprise security firm SEQRITE.
"New Rust-based payloads and encrypted PowerShell commands have been utilized to exfiltrate
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an updated version of an Android banking malware called Chameleon that has expanded its targeting to include users in the U.K. and Italy.
"Representing a restructured and enhanced iteration of its predecessor, this evolved Chameleon variant excels in executing Device Takeover (DTO) using the accessibility service, all while expanding its targeted region,
Google is highlighting the role played by Clang sanitizers in hardening the security of the cellular baseband in the Android operating system and preventing specific kinds of vulnerabilities.
This comprises Integer Overflow Sanitizer (IntSan) and BoundsSanitizer (BoundSan), both of which are part of UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSan), a tool designed to catch various kinds of
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered 18 malicious loan apps for Android on the Google Play Store that have been collectively downloaded over 12 million times.
"Despite their attractive appearance, these services are in fact designed to defraud users by offering them high-interest-rate loans endorsed with deceitful descriptions, all while collecting their victims' personal and
A collection of security flaws in the firmware implementation of 5G mobile network modems from major chipset vendors such as MediaTek and Qualcomm impact USB and IoT modems as well as hundreds of smartphone models running Android and iOS.
Of the 14 flaws – collectively called 5Ghoul (a combination of "5G" and "Ghoul") – 10 affect 5G modems from the two companies, out of which three
A critical Bluetooth security flaw could be exploited by threat actors to take control of Android, Linux, macOS and iOS devices.
Tracked as CVE-2023-45866, the issue relates to a case of authentication bypass that enables attackers to connect to susceptible devices and inject keystrokes to achieve code execution as the victim.
"Multiple Bluetooth stacks have authentication bypass
Unspecified governments have demanded mobile push notification records from Apple and Google users to pursue people of interest, according to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden.
"Push notifications are alerts sent by phone apps to users' smartphones," Wyden said.
"These alerts pass through a digital post office run by the phone operating system provider -- overwhelmingly Apple or Google. Because of
Chipmaker Qualcomm has released more information about three high-severity security flaws that it said came under "limited, targeted exploitation" back in October 2023.
The vulnerabilities are as follows -
CVE-2023-33063 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Memory corruption in DSP Services during a remote call from HLOS to DSP.
CVE-2023-33106 (CVSS score: 8.4) - Memory corruption in
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new sophisticated Android malware called FjordPhantom that has been observed targeting users in Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam since early September 2023.
"Spreading primarily through messaging services, it combines app-based malware with social engineering to defraud banking customers," Oslo-based mobile app
An Android malware campaign targeting Iranian banks has expanded its capabilities and incorporated additional evasion tactics to fly under the radar.
That's according to a new report from Zimperium, which discovered more than 200 malicious apps associated with the malicious operation, with the threat actor also observed carrying out phishing attacks against the targeted financial institutions.
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 impersonating legitimate organizations,
Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new dropper-as-a-service (DaaS) for Android called SecuriDropper that bypasses new security restrictions imposed by Google and delivers the malware.
Dropper malware on Android is designed to function as a conduit to install a payload on a compromised device, making it a lucrative business model for threat actors, who can advertise the capabilities
Google is rolling out a new banner to highlight the "Independent security review" badge in the Play Store's Data safety section for Android VPN apps that have undergone a Mobile Application Security Assessment (MASA) audit.
"We've launched this banner beginning with VPN apps due to the sensitive and significant amount of user data these apps handle," Nataliya Stanetsky of the Android Security
Google has announced an update to its Play Protect with support for real-time scanning at the code level to tackle novel malicious apps prior to downloading and installing them on Android devices.
"Google Play Protect will now recommend a real-time app scan when installing apps that have never been scanned before to help detect emerging threats," the tech giant said.
Google Play Protect is a
The Android banking trojan known as SpyNote has been dissected to reveal its diverse information-gathering features.
Typically spread via SMS phishing campaigns, attack chains involving the spyware trick potential victims into installing the app by clicking on the embedded link, according to F-Secure.
Besides requesting invasive permissions to access call logs, camera, SMS messages, and external
An ad fraud botnet dubbed PEACHPIT leveraged an army of hundreds of thousands of Android and iOS devices to generate illicit profits for the threat actors behind the scheme.
The botnet is part of a larger China-based operation codenamed BADBOX, which also entails selling off-brand mobile and connected TV (CTV) devices on popular online retailers and resale sites that are backdoored with an
A new Android banking trojan named GoldDigger has been found targeting several financial applications with an aim to siphon victims' funds and backdoor infected devices.
"The malware targets more than 50 Vietnamese banking, e-wallet and crypto wallet applications," Group-IB said. "There are indications that this threat might be poised to extend its reach across the wider APAC region and to
New findings have identified connections between an Android spyware called DragonEgg and another sophisticated modular iOS surveillanceware tool named LightSpy.
DragonEgg, alongside WyrmSpy (aka AndroidControl), was first disclosed by Lookout in July 2023 as a strain of malware capable of gathering sensitive data from Android devices. It was attributed to the Chinese nation-state group APT41.
On
An updated version of an Android banking trojan called Xenomorph has set its sights on more than 35 financial institutions in the U.S.
The campaign, according to Dutch security firm ThreatFabric, leverages phishing web pages that are designed to entice victims into installing malicious Android apps that target a broader list of apps than its predecessors. Some of the other targeted prominent
Tibetan, Uyghur, and Taiwanese individuals and organizations are the targets of a persistent campaign orchestrated by a threat actor codenamed EvilBamboo to gather sensitive information.
"The attacker has created fake Tibetan websites, along with social media profiles, likely used to deploy browser-based exploits against targeted users," Volexity security researchers Callum Roxan, Paul
A new analysis of the Android banking trojan known as Hook has revealed that it's based on its predecessor called ERMAC.
"The ERMAC source code was used as a base for Hook," NCC Group security researchers Joshua Kamp and Alberto Segura said in a technical analysis published last week.
"All commands (30 in total) that the malware operator can send to a device infected with ERMAC malware, also
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.
The
A Mirai botnet variant called Pandora has been observed infiltrating inexpensive Android-based TV sets and TV boxes and using them as part of a botnet to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Doctor Web said the compromises are likely to occur either during malicious firmware updates or when applications for viewing pirated video content are installed.
"It is likely that this
Google has rolled out monthly security patches for Android to address a number of flaws, including a zero-day bug that it said may have been exploited in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2023-35674, the high-severity vulnerability is described as a case of privilege escalation impacting the Android Framework.
“There are indications that CVE-2023-35674 may be under limited, targeted exploitation,” the
A previously undocumented Android banking trojan dubbed MMRat has been observed targeting mobile users in Southeast Asia since late June 2023 to remotely commandeer the devices and perform financial fraud.
"The malware, named after its distinctive package name com.mm.user, can capture user input and screen content, and can also remotely control victim devices through various techniques, enabling
A Syrian threat actor named EVLF has been outed as the creator of malware families CypherRAT and CraxsRAT.
"These RATs are designed to allow an attacker to remotely perform real-time actions and control the victim device's camera, location, and microphone," Cybersecurity firm Cyfirma said in a report published last week.
CypherRAT and CraxsRAT are said to be offered to other cybercriminals as
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 the apps were available on the
Login
FreshRSS