Security News

The TeaBot banking trojan - also known as "Anatsa" - has been spotted on the Google Play store, researchers from Cleafy have discovered. Hank Schless, senior manager of security solutions at Lookout, explained via email that attackers "Usually stick to utility apps like QR code scanners, flashlights, photo filters, or PDF scanners because these are apps that people download out of necessity and likely won't put as much time into looking at reviews that might impact their decision to download.".

"As tanks rolled into Ukraine, so did malware," summarized humanitarian author Andreas Harsono, referring to the novel malware that Microsoft has named FoxBlade. "Several hours before the launch of missiles or movement of tanks on February 24, Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center detected a new round of offensive and destructive cyberattacks directed against Ukraine's digital infrastructure," Microsoft President and Vice-Chair Brad Smith said.

The overall number of attacks on mobile users is down, but they're getting slicker, both in terms of malware functionality and vectors, researchers say. The company's mobile products and technologies detected 97,661 new mobile banking trojans, along with 3,464,756 malicious installation packages and 17,372 new mobile ransomware trojans.

A new Android banking trojan with over 50,000 installations has been observed distributed via the official Google Play Store with the goal of targeting 56 European banks and carrying out harvesting sensitive information from compromised devices. Xenomorph, like Alien and ERMAC, is yet another example of an Android banking trojan that's focused on circumventing Google Play Store's security protections by masquerading as productivity apps such as "Fast Cleaner" to trick unaware victims into installing the malware.

Threat actors are targeting Microsoft Teams users by planting malicious documents in chat threads that execute Trojans that ultimately can take over end-user machines, researchers have found.In January, researchers at Avanan, a Check Point Company, began tracking the campaign, which drops malicious executable files in Teams conversations that, when clicked on, eventually take over the user's computer, according to a report published Thursday.

Known Palestinian threat actor MoleRats is likely behind a recent malicious email campaign targeting Middle Eastern governments, foreign-policy think tanks and a state-affiliated airline with a new intelligence-gathering trojan dubbed NimbleMamba, researchers said. Researchers from Proofpoint said they have observed a spear-phishing campaign using multiple vectors since November that they believe is the work of TA402, more commonly known as MoleRats and linked to the Palestinian Territories, according to a report posted online Tuesday.

Two different Android banking Trojans, FluBot and Medusa, are relying on the same delivery vehicle as part of a simultaneous attack campaign, according to new research published by ThreatFabric. The ongoing side-by-side infections, facilitated through the same smishing infrastructure, involved the overlapping usage of "App names, package names, and similar icons," the Dutch mobile security firm said.

The app, which is fully functional as a 2FA authenticator, comes loaded with the Vultur stealer malware that targets and swoops down on financial data. Once downloaded, the app installs Vultur banking trojan, which steals financial and banking data on the compromised device - but can do much more.

A financially-motivated malware campaign has compromised over 800 WordPress websites to deliver a banking trojan dubbed Chaes targeting Brazilian customers of Banco do Brasil, Loja Integrada, Mercado Bitcoin, Mercado Livre, and Mercado Pago. "Chaes is characterized by the multiple-stage delivery that utilizes scripting frameworks such as JScript, Python, and NodeJS, binaries written in Delphi, and malicious Google Chrome extensions," Avast researchers Anh Ho and Igor Morgenstern said.

A large-scale campaign involving over 800 compromised WordPress websites is spreading banking trojans that target the credentials of Brazilian e-banking users. Although the security firm notified the Brazilian CERT, the campaign is ongoing, with hundreds of websites still compromised with malicious scripts that push the malware.