Android+Malware | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Google on Thursday revealed it's pursuing legal action in New York federal court against 25 unnamed individuals or entities in China for allegedly operating BADBOX 2.0 botnet and residential proxy infrastructure. "The BADBOX 2.0 botnet compromised over 10 million uncertified devices running Android's open-source software (Android Open Source Project), which lacks Google's security protections," the tech giant said . "Cybercriminals infected these devices with pre-installed malware and exploited them to conduct large-scale ad fraud and other digital crimes." The company said it immediately took steps to update Google Play Protect, a malware and unwanted software protection mechanism built into Android, to automatically thwart BADBOX-related apps. The development comes a little over a month after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning about the BADBOX 2.0 botnet. BADBOX, first detected in late 2022, is known to spread via ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new, sophisticated variant of a known Android malware referred to as Konfety that leverages the evil twin technique to enable ad fraud. The sneaky approach essentially involves a scenario wherein two variants of an application share the same package name: A benign "decoy" app that's hosted on the Google Play Store and its evil twin, which is distributed via third-party sources. It's worth pointing out that the decoy apps don't have to be necessarily published by threat actors themselves and could be legitimate. The only caveat is that the malicious apps share the exact same package names as their real counterparts already available on the Play Store.  "The threat actors behind Konfety are highly adaptable, consistently altering their targeted ad networks and updating their methods to evade detection," Zimperium zLabs researcher Fernando Ortega said . "This latest variant demonstrates their sophisticat...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an Android banking malware campaign that has leveraged a trojan named Anatsa to target users in North America using malicious apps published on Google's official app marketplace. The malware, disguised as a "PDF Update" to a document viewer app, has been caught serving a deceptive overlay when users attempt to access their banking application, claiming the service has been temporarily suspended as part of scheduled maintenance. "This marks at least the third instance of Anatsa focusing its operations on mobile banking customers in the United States and Canada," Dutch mobile security company ThreatFabric said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "As with previous campaigns, Anatsa is being distributed via the official Google Play Store." Anatsa, also referred to as TeaBot and Toddler, has been known to be active since at least 2020, typically delivered to victims via dropper apps. Early last year, An...

A mobile ad fraud operation dubbed IconAds that consisted of 352 Android apps has been disrupted, according to a new report from HUMAN. The identified apps were designed to load out-of-context ads on a user's screen and hide their icons from the device home screen launcher, making it harder for victims to remove them, per the company's Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team. The apps have since been removed from the Play Store by Google. The ad fraud scheme accounted for 1.2 billion bid requests a day, at the height of its activity. The vast majority of IconAds-associated traffic originated from Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. It's worth noting that IconAds is a variant of a threat that's also tracked by other cybersecurity vendors under the names HiddenAds and Vapor , with the malicious apps repeatedly slipping past the Google Play Store since at least 2019 . Some of the common characteristics of these apps include the use of obfuscation to conceal...

Cybersecurity researchers have exposed the inner workings of an Android malware called AntiDot that has compromised over 3,775 devices as part of 273 unique campaigns. "Operated by the financially motivated threat actor LARVA-398, AntiDot is actively sold as a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) on underground forums and has been linked to a wide range of mobile campaigns," PRODAFT said in a report shared with The Hacker News. AntiDot is advertised as a "three-in-one" solution with capabilities to record the device screen by abusing Android's accessibility services, intercept SMS messages, and extract sensitive data from third-party applications. The Android botnet is suspected to be delivered via malicious advertising networks or through highly tailored phishing campaigns based on activity that indicates selective targeting of victims based on language and geographic location. AntiDot was first publicly documented in May 2024 after it was spotted being distribu...

A growing number of malicious campaigns have leveraged a recently discovered Android banking trojan called Crocodilus to target users in Europe and South America. The malware, according to a new report published by ThreatFabric, has also adopted improved obfuscation techniques to hinder analysis and detection, and includes the ability to create new contacts in the victim's contacts list. "Recent activity reveals multiple campaigns now targeting European countries while continuing Turkish campaigns and expanding globally to South America," the Dutch security company said . Crocodilus was first publicly documented in March 2025 as targeting Android device users in Spain and Turkey by masquerading as legitimate apps like Google Chrome. The malware comes fitted with capabilities to launch overlay attacks against a list of financial apps retrieved from an external server to harvest credentials. It also abuses accessibility services permissions to capture seed phrases as...

Three security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in preloaded Android applications on smartphones from Ulefone and Krüger&Matz that could enable any app installed on the device to perform a factory reset and encrypt an application. A brief description of the three flaws is as follows - CVE-2024-13915 (CVSS score: 6.9) - A pre-installed "com.pri.factorytest" application on Ulefone and Krüger&Matz smartphones exposes a "com.pri.factorytest.emmc.FactoryResetService" service that allows any installed application to perform a factory reset of the device. CVE-2024-13916 (CVSS score: 6.9) - A pre-installed "com.pri.applock" application on Kruger&Matz smartphones allows a user to encrypt any application using user-provided PIN code or by using biometric data. The app also exposes a "com.android.providers.settings.fingerprint.PriFpShareProvider" content provider's "query()" method that permits any malicious app already ...

Cybersecurity researchers have revealed that Russian military personnel are the target of a new malicious campaign that distributes Android spyware under the guise of the Alpine Quest mapping software. "The attackers hide this trojan inside modified Alpine Quest mapping software and distribute it in various ways, including through one of the Russian Android app catalogs," Doctor Web said in an analysis. The trojan has been found embedded in older versions of the software and propagated as a freely available variant of Alpine Quest Pro , a paid offering that removes advertising and analytics features. The Russian cybersecurity vendor said it also observed the malware, dubbed Android.Spy.1292.origin, being distributed in the form of an APK file via a fake Telegram channel. While the threat actors initially provided a link for downloading the app in one of the Russian app catalogs through the Telegram channel, the trojanized version was later distributed directly as an A...

A new Android malware-as-a-service (MaaS) platform named SuperCard X can facilitate near-field communication ( NFC ) relay attacks, enabling cybercriminals to conduct fraudulent cashouts. The active campaign is targeting customers of banking institutions and card issuers in Italy with an aim to compromise payment card data, fraud prevention firm Cleafy said in an analysis. There is evidence to suggest that the service is promoted on Telegram channels. SuperCard X "employs a multi-stage approach combining social engineering (via smishing and phone calls), malicious application installation, and NFC data interception for highly effective fraud," security researchers Federico Valentini‍, Alessandro Strino, and Michele Roviello said . The new Android malware, the work of a Chinese-speaking threat actor, has been observed being propagated via three different bogus apps, duping victims into installing them via social engineering techniques like deceptive SMS or WhatsApp mess...

Cybersecurity researchers have found that threat actors are setting up deceptive websites hosted on newly registered domains to deliver a known Android malware called SpyNote . These bogus websites masquerade as Google Play Store install pages for apps like the Chrome web browser, indicating an attempt to deceive unsuspecting users into installing the malware instead. "The threat actor utilized a mix of English and Chinese-language delivery sites and included Chinese-language comments within the delivery site code and the malware itself," the DomainTools Investigations (DTI) team said in a report shared with The Hacker News. SpyNote (aka SpyMax) is a remote access trojan long known for its ability to harvest sensitive data from compromised Android devices by abusing accessibility services. In May 2024, the malware was propagated via another bogus site impersonating a legitimate antivirus solution known as Avast. Subsequent analysis by mobile security firm Zimperium h...

A novice cybercrime actor has been observed leveraging the services of a Russian bulletproof hosting ( BPH ) provider called Proton66 to facilitate their operations. The findings come from DomainTools, which detected the activity after it discovered a phony website named cybersecureprotect[.]com hosted on Proton66 that masqueraded as an antivirus service. The threat intelligence firm said it identified an operational security (OPSEC) failure in the domain that left its malicious infrastructure exposed, thereby revealing the malicious payloads staged on the server.  "This revelation led us down a rabbit hole into the operations of an emerging threat actor known as Coquettte – an amateur cybercriminal leveraging Proton66's bulletproof hosting to distribute malware and engage in other illicit activities," it said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Proton66, also linked to another BPH service known as PROSPERO, has been attributed to several campaigns distribut...

Counterfeit versions of popular smartphone models that are sold at reduced prices have been found to be preloaded with a modified version of an Android malware called Triada . "More than 2,600 users in different countries have encountered the new version of Triada, the majority in Russia," Kaspersky said in a report. The infections were recorded between March 13 and 27, 2025.  Triada is the name given to a modular Android malware family that was first discovered by the Russian cybersecurity company in March 2016. A remote access trojan (RAT), it's equipped to steal a wide range of sensitive information, as well as enlist infected devices into a botnet for other malicious activities. While the malware was previously observed being distributed via intermediate apps published on the Google Play Store (and elsewhere) that gained root access to the compromised phones, subsequent campaigns have leveraged WhatsApp mods like FMWhatsApp and YoWhatsApp as a propagation vec...

An Android malware family previously observed targeting Indian military personnel has been linked to a new campaign likely aimed at users in Taiwan under the guise of chat apps. "PJobRAT can steal SMS messages, phone contacts, device and app information, documents, and media files from infected Android devices," Sophos security researcher Pankaj Kohli said in a Thursday analysis. PJobRAT, first documented in 2021, has a track record of being used against Indian military-related targets. Subsequent iterations of the malware have been discovered masquerading as dating and instant messaging apps to deceive prospective victims. It's known to be active since at least late 2019. In November 2021, Meta attributed a Pakistan-aligned threat actor dubbed SideCopy – believed to be a sub-cluster within Transparent Tribe – to the use of PJobRAT and Mayhem as part of highly-targeted attacks directed against people in Afghanistan, specifically those with ties to government, mil...

An advanced persistent threat (APT) group with ties to Pakistan has been attributed to the creation of a fake website masquerading as India's public sector postal system as part of a campaign designed to infect both Windows and Android users in the country. Cybersecurity company CYFIRMA has attributed the campaign with medium confidence to a threat actor called APT36 , which is also known as Transparent Tribe.  The fraudulent website mimicking India Post is named "postindia[.]site." Users who land on the site from Windows systems are prompted to download a PDF document, whereas those visiting from an Android device are served a malicious application package ("indiapost.apk") file. "When accessed from a desktop, the site delivers a malicious PDF file containing ' ClickFix ' tactics," CYFIRMA said . "The document instructs users to press the Win + R keys, paste a provided PowerShell command into the Run dialog, and execute it – potentia...

Hackers have long used Word and Excel documents as delivery vehicles for malware, and in 2025, these tricks are far from outdated. From phishing schemes to zero-click exploits, malicious Office files are still one of the easiest ways into a victim's system. Here are the top three Microsoft Office-based exploits still making the rounds this year and what you need to know to avoid them. 1. Phishing in MS Office: Still Hackers' Favorite Phishing attacks using Microsoft Office files have been around for years, and they're still going strong. Why? Because they work, especially in business environments where teams constantly exchange Word and Excel documents. Attackers know that people are used to opening Office files, especially if they come from what looks like a colleague, a client, or a partner. A fake invoice, a shared report, or a job offer: it doesn't take much to convince someone to click. And once the file is open, the attacker has their chance. Phishing with Offic...