Android | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday issued an alert warning of bad actors actively leveraging commercial spyware and remote access trojans (RATs) to target users of mobile messaging applications. "These cyber actors use sophisticated targeting and social engineering techniques to deliver spyware and gain unauthorized access to a victim's messaging app, facilitating the deployment of additional malicious payloads that can further compromise the victim's mobile device," the agency said . CISA cited as examples multiple campaigns that have come to light since the start of the year. Some of them include - The targeting of the Signal messaging app by multiple Russia-aligned threat actors by taking advantage of the service's "linked devices" feature to hijack target user accounts Android spyware campaigns codenamed ProSpy and ToSpy that impersonate apps like Signal and ToTok to target users in the United Arab Emi...

In a surprise move, Google on Thursday announced that it has updated Quick Share, its peer-to-peer file transfer service, to work with Apple's equipment AirDrop, allowing users to more easily share files and photos between Android and iPhone devices. The cross-platform sharing feature is currently limited to the Pixel 10 lineup and works with iPhone, iPad, and macOS devices, with plans to expand to additional Android devices in the future. In order to transfer a file from a Pixel 10 phone over AirDrop, the only caveat is that the owner of the Apple device is required to make sure their iPhone (or iPad or Mac) is discoverable to anyone – which can be enabled for 10 minutes. Likewise, to receive content from an Apple device, Android device users will need to adjust their Quick Share visibility settings to Everyone for 10 minutes or be in Receive mode on the Quick Share page, according to a support document published by Google. "We built Quick Share's interoperability...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new Android banking trojan called Sturnus that enables credential theft and full device takeover to conduct financial fraud. "A key differentiator is its ability to bypass encrypted messaging," ThreatFabric said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "By capturing content directly from the device screen after decryption, Sturnus can monitor communications via WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal." Another notable feature is its ability to stage overlay attacks by serving fake login screens atop banking apps to capture victims' credentials. According to the Dutch mobile security company, Sturnus is privately operated and is currently assessed to be in the evaluation stage. Artifacts distributing the banking malware are listed below - Google Chrome ("com.klivkfbky.izaybebnx") Preemix Box ("com.uvxuthoq.noscjahae") The malware has been designed to specifically single out financial inst...

Google has disclosed that the company's continued adoption of the Rust programming language in Android has resulted in the number of memory safety vulnerabilities falling below 20% of total vulnerabilities for the first time. "We adopted Rust for its security and are seeing a 1000x reduction in memory safety vulnerability density compared to Android's C and C++ code. But the biggest surprise was Rust's impact on software delivery," Google's Jeff Vander Stoep said . "With Rust changes having a 4x lower rollback rate and spending 25% less time in code review, the safer path is now also the faster one." The development comes a little over a year after the tech giant disclosed that its transition to Rust led to a decline in memory safety vulnerabilities from 223 in 2019 to less than 50 in 2024. The company pointed out that Rust code requires fewer revisions, necessitating about 20% fewer revisions than their C++ counterparts, and has contributed to a d...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new Android remote access trojan (RAT) called Fantasy Hub that's sold on Russian-speaking Telegram channels under a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) model. According to its seller, the malware enables device control and espionage, allowing threat actors to collect SMS messages, contacts, call logs, images, and videos, as well as intercept, reply, and delete incoming notifications. "It's a MaaS product with seller documentation, videos, and a bot-driven subscription model that helps novice attackers by providing a low barrier to entry," Zimperium researcher Vishnu Pratapagiri said in a report last week. "Because it targets financial workflows (fake windows for banks) and abuses the SMS handler role (for intercepting 2-factor SMS), it poses a direct threat to enterprise customers using BYOD and to any organization whose employees rely on mobile banking or sensitive mobile apps." The threat actor, in their...