Android | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Latin America and Europe become the target of two banking trojan campaigns that are designed to infect Windows and Android devices with Grandoreiro and BTMOB malware, respectively. That's according to new findings from WatchGuard and ESET, which have observed the two malware families being used to single out companies in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, as well as mobile users in Brazil. The Grandoreiro campaign "uses the DLL Side-Loading technique abusing four different software, targeting banks in Portugal," WatchGuard researcher Euler Neto said . Active since 2016, Grandoreiro is an actively evolving banking malware that's capable of stealing credentials associated with thousands of financial institutions across 45 countries and territories. It's typically distributed via phishing emails, instructing recipients to click on sketchy links. Despite some arrests and attempts by Brazilian authorities to dismantle its infrastructure in early 2024, the malware h...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new ad fraud and malvertising operation dubbed Trapdoor targeting Android device users. The activity, per HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team, encompassed 455 malicious Android apps and 183 threat actor-owned command-and-control (C2) domains, turning the infrastructure into a pipeline for multi-stage fraud. "Users unwittingly download a threat actor-owned app, often a utility-style app like a PDF viewer or device cleanup tool," researchers Louisa Abel, Ryan Joye, João Marques, João Santos, and Adam Sell detailed in a report shared with The Hacker News. "These apps trigger malvertising campaigns that coerce users into downloading additional threat actor-owned apps. The secondary apps launch hidden WebViews, load threat actor-owned HTML5 domains, and request ads." The campaign, the cybersecurity company added, is self-sustaining in that an organic app install turns into an illicit re...

Google on Tuesday unveiled a new opt-in Android feature called Intrusion Logging for storing forensic logs to better analyze sophisticated spyware attacks. Intrusion Logging, available as part of Advanced Protection Mode , enables "persistent and privacy-preserving forensics logging to allow for investigation of devices in the event of a suspected compromise," the company said. The feature, it added, was developed in partnership with Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. According to a help document shared by Google, it logs device and network activities on a daily basis, including information about device behavior and the various applications that run on it. The kinds of activities recorded are listed below - App activity (e.g., when an app process starts) App installations, updates, and uninstalls Network connections like starting and stopping Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DNS lookups, and IP addresses File transfers to or from the device over USB Changes to...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new version of the TrickMo Android banking trojan that uses The Open Network (TON) for command-and-control (C2). The new variant, observed by ThreatFabric between January and February 2026, has been observed actively targeting banking and cryptocurrency wallet users in France, Italy, and Austria. "TrickMo relies on a runtime-loaded APK  (dex.module), used also by the previous variant, but updated with new features adding new network-oriented functionality, including reconnaissance, SSH tunnelling, and SOCKS5 proxying capabilities that allow infected devices to function as programmable network pivots and traffic-exit nodes," the Dutch mobile security company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. TrickMo is the name assigned to a device takeover (DTO) malware that's been active in the wild since late 2019. It was first flagged by CERT-Bund and IBM X-Force , describing its ability to abuse Android's accessibility ser...

Apple on Monday officially released iOS 26.5 with support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to Rich Communication Services (RCS) in beta as part of a "cross-industry effort" to replace traditional SMS with a more secure alternative. To that end, E2EE RCS messaging is rolling out to iPhone users running iOS 26.5 with supported carriers and Android users on the latest version of Google Messages. The feature is enabled by default for both new and existing conversations in both platforms. RCS is a modern, internet-based messaging protocol that allows Android and iPhone users to send high-resolution photos and videos, see typing indicators, and receive read receipts, features all typically present in instant messaging apps. It is built on an industry specification called the RCS Universal Profile . "When RCS messages are end-to-end encrypted, they can't be read while they're sent between devices," Apple said in a statement. "Users will know that a conv...