Security News

Four high severity vulnerabilities have been disclosed in a framework used by pre-installed Android System apps with millions of downloads. "As it is with many of pre-installed or default applications that most Android devices come with these days, some of the affected apps cannot be fully uninstalled or disabled without gaining root access to the device," the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team said in a report published Friday.

Microsoft security researchers have found high severity vulnerabilities in a framework used by Android apps from multiple large international mobile service providers. "The apps were embedded in the devices' system image, suggesting that they were default applications installed by phone providers," according to security researchers Jonathan Bar Or, Sang Shin Jung, Michael Peck, Joe Mansour, and Apurva Kumar of the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team.

The ERMAC Android banking trojan has released version 2.0, increasing the number of applications targeted from 378 to 467, covering a much wider range of apps to steal account credentials and crypto wallets. The first malware campaign utilizing the new ERMAC 2.0 malware is a fake Bolt Food application targeting the Polish market.

Spyware vendor Cytrox sold zero-day exploits to government-backed snoops who used them to deploy the firm's Predator spyware in at least three campaigns in 2021, according to Google's Threat Analysis Group. Based on CitizenLab's analysis of Predator spyware, Google's bug hunters believe that the buyers of these exploits operate in Egypt, Armenia, Greece, Madagascar, Côte d'Ivoire, Serbia, Spain, Indonesia, and possibly other countries.

In these attacks, part of three campaigns that started between August and October 2021, the attackers used zero-day exploits targeting Chrome and the Android OS to install Predator spyware implants on fully up-to-date Android devices. The government-backed malicious actors who purchased and used these exploits to infect Android targets with spyware are from Egypt, Armenia, Greece, Madagascar, Côte d'Ivoire, Serbia, Spain, and Indonesia, according to Google's analysis.

Google's Threat Analysis Group on Thursday pointed fingers at a North Macedonian spyware developer named Cytrox for developing exploits against five zero-day flaws, four in Chrome and one in Android, to target Android users. "The 0-day exploits were used alongside n-day exploits as the developers took advantage of the time difference between when some critical bugs were patched but not flagged as security issues and when these patches were fully deployed across the Android ecosystem," TAG researchers Clement Lecigne and Christian Resell said.

Microsoft has updated the Windows Subsystem for Android in Windows 11 to make telemetry collection optional and announced an upgrade to Android 12.1. "To help us make Windows Subsystem for Android better and provide useful telemetry about Android app usage, please enable this setting in the Windows Subsystem for Android Settings app!".

A new report from Google's Threat Analysis Group exposes the use of five different zero-day vulnerabilities targeting Chrome browser and Android operating systems. Google assesses with high confidence that these exploits have been packaged by a single commercial surveillance company named Cytrox.

More than 200 Android apps masquerading as fitness, photo editing, and puzzle apps have been observed distributing spyware called Facestealer to siphon user credentials and other valuable information. Facestealer, first documented by Doctor Web in July 2021, refers to a group of fraudulent apps that invade the official app marketplace for Android with the goal of plundering sensitive data such as Facebook login credentials.

Google on Wednesday took to its annual developer conference to announce a host of privacy and security updates, including support for virtual credit cards on Android and Chrome. "When you use autofill to enter your payment details at checkout, virtual cards will add an additional layer of security by replacing your actual card number with a distinct, virtual number," Google's Jen Fitzpatrick said in a statement.