Android | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

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 ...

Qualcomm has shipped security updates to address three zero-day vulnerabilities that it said have been exploited in limited, targeted attacks in the wild. The flaws in question, which were responsibly disclosed to the company by the Google Android Security team, are listed below - CVE-2025-21479 and CVE-2025-21480 (CVSS score: 8.6) - Two incorrect authorization vulnerabilities in the Graphics component that could result in memory corruption due to unauthorized command execution in GPU microcode while executing a specific sequence of commands CVE-2025-27038 (CVSS score: 7.5) - A use-after-free vulnerability in the Graphics component that could result in memory corruption while rendering graphics using Adreno GPU drivers in Chrome "There are indications from Google Threat Analysis Group that CVE-2025-21479, CVE-2025-21480, CVE-2025-27038 may be under limited, targeted exploitation," Qualcomm said in an advisory. "Patches for the issues affecting the Adreno Grap...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new campaign that employs malicious JavaScript injections to redirect site visitors on mobile devices to a Chinese adult-content Progressive Web App (PWA) scam. "While the payload itself is nothing new (yet another adult gambling scam), the delivery method stands out," c/side researcher Himanshu Anand said in a Tuesday analysis. "The malicious landing page is a full-blown Progressive Web App ( PWA ), likely aiming to retain users longer and bypass basic browser protections." The campaign is designed to explicitly filter out desktop users, primarily focusing on mobile users. The activity has been described as a client-side attack that uses third-party JavaScript and only triggers on mobile devices. The use of PWAs, a type of application built using web technologies that provide a user experience similar to that of a native app built for a specific platform like Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, or iOS, is seen as an at...

Google on Thursday announced it's rolling out new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered countermeasures to combat scams across Chrome, Search, and Android. The tech giant said it will begin using Gemini Nano , its on-device large language model (LLM), to improve Safe Browsing in Chrome 137 on desktops. "The on-device approach provides instant insight on risky websites and allows us to offer protection, even against scams that haven't been seen before. Gemini Nano's LLM is perfect for this use because of its ability to distill the varied, complex nature of websites, helping us adapt to new scam tactics more quickly," the company said . Google noted that it's already using this AI-driven approach to tackle remote tech support scams, which often seek to trick users into parting with their personal or financial information under the pretext of a non-existent computer problem. This works by evaluating the web pages using the LLM for potential signals that are...