Zimperium | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new, large-scale mobile malware campaign that's targeting Android and iOS platforms with fake dating, social networking, cloud storage, and car service apps to steal sensitive personal data. The cross-platform threat has been codenamed SarangTrap by Zimperium zLabs. Users in South Korea appear to be the primary focus. "This extensive campaign involved over 250 malicious Android applications and more than 80 malicious domains, all disguised as legitimate dating and social media applications," security researcher Rajat Goyal said . The bogus domains, which impersonate legitimate app store listing pages, are used as a lure to trick users into installing these apps, resulting in the exfiltration of contact lists and images, all while keeping up an illusion of legitimacy. Once installed, the Android apps also prompt the victim to enter an invitation code, after which it's validated against a command-and-control (C2) server. ...

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...

A previously undocumented Android malware campaign has been observed leveraging money-lending apps to blackmail victims into paying up with personal information stolen from their devices. Mobile security company Zimperium dubbed the activity  MoneyMonger , pointing out the use of the  cross-platform Flutter framework  to develop the apps. MoneyMonger "takes advantage of Flutter's framework to obfuscate malicious features and complicate the detection of malicious activity by static analysis," Zimperium researchers Fernando Sanchez, Alex Calleja , Matteo Favaro, and Gianluca Braga  said  in a report shared with The Hacker news. "Due to the nature of Flutter, the malicious code and activity now hide behind a framework outside the static analysis capabilities of legacy mobile security products." The campaign, believed to be active since May 2022, is part of a broader effort previously  disclosed  by Indian cybersecurity firm K7 Security Labs. None of...

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The Keksec threat actor has been linked to a previously undocumented malware strain, which has been observed in the wild masquerading as an extension for Chromium-based web browsers to enslave compromised machines into a botnet. Called  Cloud9  by security firm Zimperium, the malicious browser add-on comes with a wide range of features that enables it to siphon cookies, log keystrokes, inject arbitrary JavaScript code, mine crypto, and even enlist the host to carry out DDoS attacks. The extension "not only steals the information available during the browser session but can also install malware on a user's device and subsequently assume control of the entire device," Zimperium researcher Nipun Gupta  said  in a new report. The JavaScript botnet isn't distributed via Chrome Web Store or Microsoft Edge Add-ons, but rather through fake executables and rogue websites disguised as Adobe Flash Player updates. Once installed, the extension is designed to inject a JavaSc...

A novel Android malware called RatMilad has been observed targeting a Middle Eastern enterprise mobile device by concealing itself as a VPN and phone number spoofing app. The mobile trojan functions as advanced spyware with capabilities that receives and executes commands to collect and exfiltrate a wide variety of data from the infected mobile endpoint, Zimperium  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Evidence gathered by the mobile security company shows that the malicious app is distributed through links on social media and communication tools like Telegram, tricking unsuspecting users into sideloading the app and granting it extensive permissions. The idea behind embedding the malware within a fake VPN and phone number spoofing service is also clever in that the app claims to enable users to verify social media accounts via phone, a technique popular in countries where access is restricted. "Once installed and in control, the attackers could access the camer...

A malicious browser extension with 350 variants is masquerading as a Google Translate add-on as part of an adware campaign targeting Russian users of Google Chrome, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox browsers. Mobile security firm Zimperium dubbed the malware family  ABCsoup , stating the "extensions are installed onto a victim's machine via a Windows-based executable, bypassing most endpoint security solutions, along with the security controls found in the official extension stores." The rogue browser add-ons come with the same extension ID as that of Google Translate — " aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb " — in an attempt to trick users into believing that they have installed a legitimate extension. The extensions are not available on the official browser web stores themselves. Rather they are delivered through different Windows executables that install the add-on on the victim's web browser. In the event the targeted user already has the Google Translate ext...

10 of the most prolific mobile banking trojans have set their eyes on 639 financial applications that are available on the Google Play Store and have been cumulatively downloaded over 1.01 billion times. Some of the most targeted apps include Walmart-backed PhonePe, Binance, Cash App, Garanti BBVA Mobile, La Banque Postale, Ma Banque, Caf - Mon Compte, Postepay, and BBVA México. These apps alone account for more than 260 million downloads from the official app marketplace. Of the 639 apps tracked, 121 are based in the U.S., followed by the U.K. (55), Italy (43), Turkey (34), Australia (33), France (31), Spain (29), and Portugal (27). " TeaBot  is targeting 410 of the 639 applications tracked," mobile security company Zimperium  said  in a new analysis of Android threats during the first half of 2022. " Octo  targets 324 of the 639 applications tracked and is the only one targeting popular, non-financial applications for credential theft." Aside from  TeaBo...