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Facebook parent company Meta disclosed that it took action against two espionage operations in South Asia that leveraged its social media platforms to distribute malware to potential targets. The first set of activities is what the company described as "persistent and well-resourced" and undertaken by a hacking group tracked under the moniker Bitter APT (aka APT-C-08 or T-APT-17) targeting individuals in New Zealand, India, Pakistan, and the U.K. "Bitter used various malicious tactics to target people online with social engineering and infect their devices with malware," Meta  said  in its Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report. "They used a mix of link-shortening services, malicious domains, compromised websites, and third-party hosting providers to distribute their malware." The attacks involved the threat actor creating fictitious personas on the platform, masquerading as attractive young women in a bid to build trust with targets and lure them into cl

A malicious campaign leveraged seemingly innocuous Android dropper apps on the Google Play Store to compromise users' devices with  banking   malware . These 17 dropper apps, collectively dubbed  DawDropper  by Trend Micro, masqueraded as productivity and utility apps such as document scanners, QR code readers, VPN services, and call recorders, among others. All these apps in question have been removed from the app marketplace. "DawDropper uses Firebase Realtime Database, a third-party cloud service, to evade detection and dynamically obtain a payload download address," the researchers  said . "It also hosts malicious payloads on GitHub." Droppers are apps designed to sneak past Google's Play Store security checks, following which they are used to download more potent and intrusive malware on a device, in this case,  Octo  (Coper),  Hydra ,  Ermac , and  TeaBot . Attack chains involved the DawDropper malware establishing connections with a Firebase Re

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

As many as 30 malicious Android apps with cumulative downloads of nearly 10 million have been found on the Google Play Store distributing adware. "All of them were built into various programs, including image-editing software, virtual keyboards, system tools and utilities, calling apps, wallpaper collection apps, and others," Dr.Web  said  in a Tuesday write-up. While masquerading as innocuous apps, their primary goal is to request permissions to show windows over other apps and run in the background in order to serve intrusive ads. To make it difficult for the victims to detect and uninstall the apps, the adware trojans hide their icons from the list of installed apps in the home screen or replace the icons with others that are likely to be less noticed (e.g., SIM Toolkit). Some of these apps also offer the advertised features, as observed in the case of two apps: "Water Reminder- Tracker & Reminder" and "Yoga- For Beginner to Advanced." However

The mobile threat campaign tracked as  Roaming Mantis  has been linked to a new wave of compromises directed against French mobile phone users, months after it expanded its targeting to include European countries. No fewer than 70,000 Android devices are said to have been infected as part of the active malware operation, Sekoia said in a report published last week. Attack chains involving  Roaming Mantis , a financially motivated Chinese threat actor, are known to either deploy a piece of banking trojan named MoqHao (aka XLoader) or redirect iPhone users to credential harvesting landing pages that mimic the iCloud login page. "MoqHao (aka Wroba, XLoader for Android) is an Android remote access trojan (RAT) with information-stealing and backdoor capabilities that likely spreads via SMS," Sekoia researchers  said . It all starts with a phishing SMS, a technique known as smishing, enticing users with package delivery-themed messages containing rogue links, that, when clic

Google on Thursday said it's backtracking on a  recent change  that removed the app permissions list from the Google Play Store for Android across both the mobile app and the web. "Privacy and transparency are core values in the Android community," the Android Developers team  said  in a series of tweets. "We heard your feedback that you find the app permissions section in Google Play useful, and we've decided to reinstate it. The app permissions section will be back shortly." To that end, in addition to showcasing the new Data safety section that offers users a simplified summary of an app's data collection, processing, and security practices, Google also intends to highlight all the permissions required by the app to make sense of its "ability to access specific restricted data and actions." The reinstatement comes as the internet giant moved to swap out the apps permission section with the newer Data safety labels last week ahead of the

Google on Tuesday officially announced support for DNS-over-HTTP/3 (DoH3) for Android devices as part of a Google Play system update designed to keep DNS queries private. To that end, Android smartphones running Android 11 and higher are expected to use DoH3 instead of DNS-over-TLS ( DoT ), which was incorporated into the mobile operating system with Android 9.0. DoH3 is also an alternative to DNS-over-HTTPS ( DoH ), a mechanism for carrying out remote Domain Name System (DNS) resolution through an encrypted connection, effectively preventing third parties from snooping on users' browsing activities. HTTP/3 , the first major upgrade to the hypertext transfer protocol since HTTP/2 was introduced in May 2015, is designed to use a new transport layer protocol called  QUIC  that's already supported by major browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari. The low-latency protocol, developed by Google in 2012, relies on the User Datagram Prot

Russian threat actors capitalized on the  ongoing conflict  against Ukraine to distribute Android malware camouflaged as an app for pro-Ukrainian hacktivists to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Russian sites. Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) attributed the malware to Turla, an advanced persistent threat also known as Krypton, Venomous Bear, Waterbug, and Uroburos, and linked to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). "This is the first known instance of Turla distributing Android-related malware," TAG researcher Billy Leonard  said . "The apps were not distributed through the Google Play Store, but hosted on a domain controlled by the actor and disseminated via links on third party messaging services." It's worth noting that the  onslaught  of  cyberattacks  in the immediate aftermath of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine prompted the latter to  form an IT Army  to stage counter-DDoS attacks against Russian website

Google has taken steps to ax dozens of fraudulent apps from the official Play Store that were spotted propagating Joker, Facestealer, and Coper malware families through the virtual marketplace. While the Android storefront is considered to be a trusted source for discovering and installing apps, bad actors have repeatedly found ways to sneak past security barriers erected by Google in hopes of luring unsuspecting users into downloading malware-laced apps. The latest findings from  Zscaler ThreatLabz  and  Pradeo  are no different. "Joker is one of the most  prominent malware families  targeting Android devices," researchers Viral Gandhi and Himanshu Sharma said in a Monday report. "Despite public awareness of this particular malware, it keeps finding its way into Google's official app store by regularly modifying the malware's trace signatures including updates to the code, execution methods, and payload-retrieving techniques." Categorized as  fleecewa

Following the launch of a new "Data safety" section for Android apps on the Play Store, Google appears to be readying to remove the app permissions list from both the mobile app and the web. The change was  highlighted  by Esper's Mishaal Rahman earlier this week. The  Data safety  section, which Google began rolling out in late April 2022, is the company's answer to Apple's Privacy Nutrition Labels in iOS, allowing users to have a unified view of an app's data collection and processing practices. To that end, third-party app developers are required to furnish the required details by July 20, 2022. With this deadline now approaching next week, the tech giant has taken the step of entirely removing the permissions section. The decision also appears to be a hasty one, as a number of popular apps such as Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Amazon (including Amazon Prime Video), DuckDuckGo, Discord, and PhonePe are yet to populate their Data safety sec

Microsoft has detailed the evolving capabilities of toll fraud malware apps on Android, pointing out its "complex multi-step attack flow" and an improved mechanism to evade security analysis. Toll fraud belongs to a category of billing fraud wherein malicious mobile applications come with hidden subscription fees, roping in unsuspecting users to premium content without their knowledge or consent. It's also different from other  fleeceware threats  in that the malicious functions are only carried out when a compromised device is connected to one of its target network operators. "It also, by default, uses cellular connection for its activities and forces devices to connect to the mobile network even if a Wi-Fi connection is available," Dimitrios Valsamaras and Sang Shin Jung of the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team  said  in an exhaustive analysis. "Once the connection to a target network is confirmed, it stealthily initiates a fraudulent subscription

Google on Thursday announced a slew of improvements to its  password manager  service aimed at creating a more consistent look and feel across different platforms. Central to the changes is a "simplified and unified management experience that's the same in Chrome and Android settings," Ali Sarraf, Google Chrome product manager,  said  in a blog post. The updates are also expected to automatically group multiple passwords for the same sites as well as introduce an option to manually add passwords. Although Google appears to be not ready yet to make Password Manager as a standalone app, users on Android can now add a shortcut to it on the homescreen. In a related change on iOS, should users opt for Chrome as the  default autofill provider , Password Manager now comes with the ability to generate unique, strong passwords. The built-in Password Checkup feature on Android is receiving an upgrade of its own too. Beyond checking for hacked credentials, it can further hig

Amazon, in December 2021, patched a high severity vulnerability affecting its  Photos app  for Android that could have been exploited to steal a user's access tokens. "The Amazon access token is used to authenticate the user across multiple Amazon APIs, some of which contain personal data such as full name, email, and address," Checkmarx researchers João Morais and Pedro Umbelino  said . "Others, like the Amazon Drive API, allow an attacker full access to the user's files." The Israeli application security testing company reported the issue to Amazon on November 7, 2021, following which the tech giant rolled out a fix on December 18, 2021. The leak is the result of a misconfiguration in one of the app's components named "com.amazon.gallery.thor.app.activity.ThorViewActivity" that's defined in the  AndroidManifest.xml file  and which, when launched, initiates an HTTP request with a header containing the access token. In a nutshell, it

A new security vulnerability has been disclosed in RARlab's UnRAR utility that, if successfully exploited, could permit a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a system that relies on the binary. The flaw, assigned the identifier CVE-2022-30333, relates to a path traversal vulnerability in the Unix versions of UnRAR that can be triggered upon extracting a maliciously crafted RAR archive. Following responsible disclosure on May 4, 2022, the shortcoming was addressed by RarLab as part of  version 6.12  released on May 6. Other versions of the software, including those for Windows and Android operating systems, are not impacted. "An attacker is able to create files outside of the target extraction directory when an application or victim user extracts an untrusted archive," SonarSource researcher Simon Scannell  said  in a Tuesday report. "If they can write to a known location, they are likely to be able to leverage it in a way leading to the execution of arb

A previously unknown Android banking trojan has been discovered in the wild, targeting users of the Spanish financial services company BBVA. Said to be in its early stages of development, the malware — dubbed  Revive  by Italian cybersecurity firm Cleafy — was first observed on June 15, 2022 and distributed by means of phishing campaigns. "The name Revive has been chosen since one of the functionality of the malware (called by the [threat actors] precisely 'revive') is restarting in case the malware stops working," Cleafy researchers Federico Valentini and Francesco Iubatti  said  in a Monday write-up. Available for download from rogue phishing pages ("bbva.appsecureguide[.]com" or "bbva.european2fa[.]com") as a lure to trick users into downloading the app, the malware impersonates the bank's two-factor authentication (2FA) app and is said to be inspired from open-source spyware called  Teardroid , with the authors tweaking the original so

A week after it emerged that a sophisticated mobile spyware dubbed Hermit was used by the government of Kazakhstan within its borders, Google said it has notified Android users of infected devices. Additionally, necessary changes have been implemented in  Google Play Protect  — Android's built-in malware defense service — to protect all users, Benoit Sevens and Clement Lecigne of Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG)  said  in a Thursday report. Hermit, the work of an Italian vendor named RCS Lab, was  documented  by Lookout last week, calling out its modular feature-set and its abilities to harvest sensitive information such as call logs, contacts, photos, precise location, and SMS messages. Once the threat has thoroughly insinuated itself into a device, it's also equipped to record audio and make and redirect phone calls, besides abusing its permissions to accessibility services on Android to keep tabs on various foreground apps used by the victims. Its modularity also enab

The operators behind  BRATA  have once again added more capabilities to the Android mobile malware in an attempt to make their attacks against financial apps more stealthy. "In fact, the modus operandi now fits into an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) activity pattern," Italian cybersecurity firm Cleafy  said  in a report last week. "This term is used to describe an attack campaign in which criminals establish a long-term presence on a targeted network to steal sensitive information." An acronym for "Brazilian Remote Access Tool Android," BRATA was first  detected  in the wild in Brazil in late 2018, before making its first appearance in Europe last April, while masquerading as antivirus software and other common productivity tools to trick users into downloading them. The change in the attack pattern, which scaled new highs in early April 2022, involves tailoring the malware to strike a specific financial institution at a time, switching to a differe

An enterprise-grade surveillanceware dubbed Hermit has been put to use by entities operating from within Kazakhstan, Syria, and Italy over the years since 2019, new research has revealed. Lookout attributed the spy software, which is equipped to target both Android and iOS, to an Italian company named RCS Lab S.p.A and Tykelab Srl, a telecom services provider which it suspects to be a front company. The San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm said it detected the campaign aimed at Kazakhstan in April 2022. Hermit is modular and comes with myriad capabilities that allow it to "exploit a rooted device, record audio and make and redirect phone calls, as well as collect data such as call logs, contacts, photos, device location and SMS messages," Lookout researchers Justin Albrecht and Paul Shunk  said  in a new write-up. The spyware is believed to be distributed via SMS messages that trick users into installing what are seemingly innocuous apps from Samsung, Vivo, and Oppo, w

A new strain of Android malware has been spotted in the wild targeting online banking and cryptocurrency wallet customers in Spain and Italy, just weeks after a coordinated law enforcement operation dismantled  FluBot . The information stealing trojan, codenamed  MaliBot  by F5 Labs, is as feature-rich as its  counterparts , allowing it to steal credentials and cookies, bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA) codes, and abuse Android's Accessibility Service to monitor the victim's device screen. MaliBot is known to primarily disguise itself as cryptocurrency mining apps such as Mining X or The CryptoApp that are distributed via fraudulent websites designed to attract potential visitors into downloading them. It also takes another leaf out of the mobile banking trojan playbook in that it employs smishing as a distribution vector to proliferate the malware by accessing an infected smartphone's contacts and sending SMS messages containing links to the malware. "Mal