Security News
Google's Threat Analysis Group revealed today that RCS Labs, an Italian spyware vendor, has received help from some Internet service providers to infect Android and iOS users in Italy and Kazakhstan with commercial surveillance tools. RCS Labs is just one of more than 30 spyware vendors whose activity is currently tracked by Google, according to Google TAG analysts Benoit Sevens and Clement Lecigne.
While tracking the mobile banking malware FluBot, the F5 Labs researchers discovered the new Malibot threat targeting Android phones. The second distribution channel is via smishing, directly hitting Android phones: Malibot has the ability to send SMS messages on-demand, and once it receives such a command it sends texts on a phone list provided by the Malibot command and control server.
The operators behind BRATA have once again added more capabilities to the Android mobile malware in an attempt to make their attacks against financial apps more stealthy. An acronym for "Brazilian Remote Access Tool Android," BRATA was first detected in the wild in Brazil in late 2018, before making its first appearance in Europe last April, while masquerading as antivirus software and other common productivity tools to trick users into downloading them.
The threat actor behind BRATA banking trojan has evolved their tactics and improved the malware with information-stealing capabilities. Italian mobile security company Cleafy has been tracking BRATA activity and noticed in the most recent campaigns changes that lead to longer persistence on the device.
An enterprise-grade surveillanceware dubbed Hermit has been put to use by entities operating from within Kazakhstan, Syria, and Italy over the years since 2019, new research has revealed. Lookout attributed the spy software, which is equipped to target both Android and iOS, to an Italian company named RCS Lab S.p.
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new Android banking malware named MaliBot, which poses as a cryptocurrency mining app or the Chrome web browser to target users in Italy and Spain. MaliBot focuses on stealing financial information such as e-banking service credentials, crypto wallet passwords, and personal details, while it's also capable of snatching two-factor authentication codes from notifications.
A new strain of Android malware has been spotted in the wild targeting online banking and cryptocurrency wallet customers in Spain and Italy, just weeks after a coordinated law enforcement operation dismantled FluBot. The information stealing trojan, codenamed MaliBot by F5 Labs, is as feature-rich as its counterparts, allowing it to steal credentials and cookies, bypass multi-factor authentication codes, and abuse Android's Accessibility Service to monitor the victim's device screen.
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered adware and information-stealing malware on the Google Play Store last month, with at least five still available and having amassed over two million downloads. Analysts at Dr. Web antivirus report that adware apps and data-stealing Trojans were among the most prominent Android threats in May 2022.
A technically sophisticated threat actor known as SeaFlower has been targeting Android and iOS users as part of an extensive campaign that mimics official cryptocurrency wallet websites intending to distribute backdoored apps that drain victims' funds. "As of today, the main current objective of SeaFlower is to modify Web3 wallets with backdoor code that ultimately exfiltrates the seed phrase," Confiant's Taha Karim said in a technical deep-dive of the campaign.
Google has released the June 2022 security updates for Android devices running OS versions 10, 11, and 12, fixing 41 vulnerabilities, five rated critical. The security update is separated into two levels, released on June 1 and June 5.