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Android Video Malware found in Japanese Google Play Store A new Trojan has been found, and removed, from the Google Play/Android Market, McAfee reported on Friday afternoon. The post says applications carrying the Trojan promise, and in some cases deliver, trailers for upcoming video games or anime or adult-oriented clips, but they also request "read contact data" and "read phone state and identity" permissions before being downloaded. McAfee Mobile Security detects these threats as Android/DougaLeaker .A, the company said.McAfee said that the fifteen malicious applications of this sort had been found on Google Play, and that all had been removed from the market. The app gathers the Android ID not the IMEI code that can uniquely identify the device, but the 64-bit number that is randomly generated on the device's first boot and remains with it for the life of the device. The app also harvests the phone's phone number and contact list, along with every n

Legacy Native Malware in Angry Birds Space to pwn your Android A new malware threatens phones and tablets running Google's OS by hiding inside a copy of the popular game. Researchers at the mobile security firm Lookout identified the reworked malware as Legacy Native (LeNa), which poses as a legitimate app to gain unauthorized privileges on Android phones.  Under the appearance of a legitimate application, LeNa tricked users into allowing it access to information. " By employing an exploit, this new variant of LeNa does not depend on user interaction to gain root access to a device. This extends its impact to users of devices not patched against this vulnerability (versions prior to 2.3.4 that do not otherwise have a back-ported patch), " Lookout said in a blog post. In March, another Trojan appeared pretending to be legitimate Chinese game, The Roar of the Pharaoh . The malicious app appeared on the Google Play store, stealing users' data and money by sending S

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,

TigerBot - SMS Controlled Android Malware Stealing Information A new form of Android malware controlled via SMS messages has been discovered and the malware can record phone calls, upload the device's GPS location, and reboot the phone, among other things. Researchers at NQ Mobile, working alongside researchers at North Carolina State University, have discovered this Android malware called "TigerBot", differs from "traditional" malware in that it is controlled via SMS rather than from a command & control (C&C) server on the Internet. A common aspect of Android malware is the use of a command and control server that tells the malware what to do next and acts as a repository for any captured passwords or banking information. The current information about this malware show that it can execute a range of commands including uploading the phone's current location, sending SMS messages, and even recording phone calls. It works by intercepting SMS messages sent to the

Your Facebook credentials at risk on Android - iOS jailbroken devices Facebook allows its authentication credentials to be stored in plain text within the Apple iOS version of its mobile app, allowing an attacker complete control over your Facebook account if he knows where to look. Security researcher Gareth Wright noted the vulnerability and alerted Facebook. Wright wrote on his blog that he discovered the issue while exploring the application directories in his iPhone with a free tool and came across a Facebook access token in the Draw Something game on his phone. The simple 'hack' allows a user to copy a plain text file off of the device and onto another one. This effectively gives another user access to your account, profile and all on that iOS device. Facebook's native apps for the two platforms not encrypting your login credentials, meaning they can be easily swiped over a USB connection, or more likely, via malicious apps. Facebook has responded that this issue only appl

POC Android botnet - Command and Control Channel over SMS To avoid detection, this proof-of-concept code utilizes the Short Messaging Service (SMS) as a command & control channel. This adds fault tolerance because, if a smartphone is not available on the GSM network due to being powered off or out of service range, when an SMS message arrives for delivery, the message is queued and delivered by the network. Download the POC code from Here. Compiling instructions are simple and straight forward. Please follow these: Compile with arm-gcc with the -static flag set Copy to anywhere on the underlying OS that is writable (/data/ is good). Rename /dev/smd0/ to /dev/smd0real/ Start the bot application Kill the radio application (ps | grep rild) The radio will automatically respawn and now the bot proxy will be working The PoC code for smartphone botnet C&C over SMS was presented at the Shmoocon held in January 2011. It seems that the author also has it working for the

Android Malware as Chinese game " The Roar of the Pharaoh " Security researchers have spotted a bogus Chinese game, that's actually a trojan horse gathering sensitive information from infected devices, next to sending premium-rate SMS messages. It is Chinese game that is original with its rights but on Android it is a fake application that inherits malware Trojan to steal important information from your cell phone. The malware works after an unknowing Android handset owner installs the app, allowing the malware to collect data, such as phone number, IMEI number, phone model, screen size and platform, and recording the OS version and platform used for sending via SMS to the Trojan's authors. But it also noted the new Trojan is unusual as it does not ask for any specific permissions during installation, which is often an indicator an application is up to no good.It added the malware masquerades as a service called " GameUpdateService " a very plausible name for a

DKFBootKit - First Android BootKit Malware NQ Mobile Security Research Center has recently uncovered a new malware DKFBootKit. This malware is identified when monitoring and analyzing the evolution of earlier DroidKungFu variants. What sets DKFBootKit apart from malware like DroidDream, is that DKFBootKit replaces certain boot processes and can begin running even before the system is completely booted up. DKFBootKit repackages legitimate apps by enclosing its own malicious payloads in them. However, the victim apps it chooses to infect are utility apps which require the root privilege to work properly. NQ says the malicious code has already infected 1,657 Android devices in the past two weeks and has appeared on at least 50 different mobile apps. These apps seem to have legitimate reasons to request root privilege for their own functionality. It is also reasonable to believe that users will likely grant the root privilege to these apps. DKFBootKit makes use of the granted root p

Mercury v1.0  - Framework for bug hunters to find Android vulnerabilities A free framework for bug hunters to find vulnerabilities, write proof-of-concept exploits and play in Android. Use dynamic analysis on Android applications and devices for quicker security assessments. Share publicly known methods of exploitation on Android and proof-of-concept exploits for applications and devices. The easy extensions interface allows users to write custom modules and exploits for Mercury Replace custom applications and scripts that perform single tasks with a framework that provides many tools. Mercury allows you to: Interact with the 4 IPC endpoints - activities, broadcast receivers, content providers and services Use a proper shell that allows you to play with the underlying Linux OS from the point of view of an unprivileged application (you will be amazed at how much you can still see) Find information on installed packages with optional search filters to allow for better control Buil

Security holes in Android with apps Advertisements Researchers at North Carolina State University have found privacy and security holes in Android apps because of in-application advertisements. They study the popular Android platform and collect 100,000 apps from the official Android Market in March-May, 2011 and Then they identify the possible 52.1% apps using Advertisements and further developa system called AdRisk to systematically identify potentialrisks. They explain that most of the ad libraries collect private information, some ofthem may be used for legitimate targeting purposes (i.e., the user'slocation) while others are hard to justify by invasively collectingthe information such as the user's call logs, phone number, browserbookmarks, or even the list of installed apps on the phone. The researchers wrote in a paper to be presented at the 5th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks in Tucson on April 17th, [ Read Here ] As one host app may

Malicious Android application stealing banking credentials A new form of smart Android malware can not only steal your online banking information, but update itself in the future and secretly send contact information stored on your device off to the Bad Guys. Security researchers at McAfee have discovered a malicious Android application capable of grabbing banking passwords from a mobile device without infecting the user's computer. From a McAfee blog post on the subject, penned by Malware Researcher Carlos Castillo: " To get the fake token, the user must enter the first factor of authentication (used to obtain initial access to the banking account). If this action is not performed, the application shows an error. When the user clicks "Generar" (Generate), the malware shows the fake token (which is in fact a random number) and sends the password to a specific cell phone number along with the device identifiers (IMEI and IMSI). The same information is also sent to one of the co

The Killswitch : They can remotely modify your Window 8 Last year,a Finnish software developer, was cruising Google's Android Market for smartphone apps last year when he noticed something strange. Dozens of best-selling applications suddenly listed the same wrong publisher. Google uses a little known kill switch, to forcibly removing the malicious code from more than 250,000 infected Android smartphones. It's a powerful way to stop threats that spread quickly, but it's also a privacy and security land mine. With the rollout of the Windows 8 operating system expected later this year, millions of desktop and laptop PCs will get kill switches for the first time. Microsoft has confirmed that they have remote kill switch installed in to Windows 8 apps. using this access, they can disable and even remove an app entirely from a user's device. This piece of information was released along with other details of the upcoming Windows Store for Windows 8. Anyone worried about Microsoft having

Ascend D quad : World's fastest Android by Huawei Huawei has introduced what it calls the world's fastest quad-core smartphone, the Huawei Ascend D quad. Powered by Huawei's K3V2 quad-core 1.2GHz/1.5GHz processor the beast comes with Android 4.0. In an aggressive presentation at the Mobile World Congress Show in Barcelona, Huawei repeatedly compared its new product to Samsung's Galaxy Nexus and Apple's latest iPhone. Huawei also unveiled the Ascend D quad XL and Ascend D1. Both devices include 32-bit true color graphic processors, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p full HD video capture and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera with 720p video capture. The phone also has Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound and Audience earSmart voice technology and an 8-megapixel BSI rear-facing camera, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, and 1080p full HD video-capture and playback capabilities. Ascend D Quad is much faster, too- 20 percent to 30 percent faster, in fact, than one running

Facebook app spreading Android Malwares Even though Google recently introduced a malware-blocking system called Bouncer to keep the Android Market safe from malicious software, crafty spammers and fraudsters are still managing to find ways around the restrictions to get their software onto users' phones. Security firm, Sophos have reported that there is malware going around via the Facebook application. The malicious software disguises itself as an Android app named "any_name.apk" or "allnew.apk" and is sent to Android phones via Facebook's mobile app.  An Android user may receive a Facebook friend request and if the user goes to the requester's profile to check them out, they could be diverted to another web page instead, where the malicious app will be automatically downloaded. Although Android doesn't by default allow apps to be automatically downloaded, some users choose to turn off this protection in order to have access to apps distributed outside of the Android Market. This

Zero-day Smartphone Vulnerability exposes location and User Data Smartphones are increasingly becoming the preferred device for both personal and professional computing, which has also attracted hackers to increase their focus on creating malware and other security vulnerabilities for these devices. A former McAfee researcher " Dmitri Alperovitch " has used a previously unknown hole in smartphone browsers to plant China-based malware that can record calls, pinpoint locations and access user texts and emails. He conducted the experiment on a phone running Android operating system, although he saysApple Inc.'s iPhones are equally vulnerable. Android is particularly vulnerable because it has become the main operating system for mobile devices. Today most smartphones are android-based therefore there is a huge dividend for hackers to write Android-targeted malware compared to other operating systems. Alperovitch, who has consulted with the U.S. intelligence community, is

Dropper Malware comes with DLL Hijacking Feature Trojans, Viruses, Worms have become the scare of the year, and with good reason. Many of the recent files are malicious in nature, causing the infected user at the very worst, to lose everything on their computer. There are few specially coded malware, which are not only developed to ensure that they cause maximum damage and steal all the sensitive information they can find on the infected devices. According to Bitdefender experts, In a blog post they mention about such a malware called "Dropper" or Trojan.Dropper.UAJ. But the brand new in terms of approach that dropper hijacks a library file called comres.dll, altering it to ensure that each time it's being used, the malware steps into play. The smartness of this malware can be judge from here that, it makes a copy of the genuine comres.dll file, patches it and then saves it in the Windows directory folder, where the operating system normally looks for a DLL to load when

Anonymous Hackers Develop WebLOIC DDOS Tool for Android Mobiles These Days Anonymous Hacker Group using a new tool WebLOIC . This tool is even easier to use than LOIC DDOS tool, requiring no download, it sends requests using Javascript in the user's browser. Just like LOIC, it is a quick path to prison, sending thousands of requests from your IP address to the target, accompanied by a slogan. Recently Hackers Release and New Interface of WebLOIC, ie. for Android Mobile in the form of an Application named " LOIC para Android by Alfred ". They Spread this tool via Anonymous social network accounts to execute the new attack in Various Anonymous operations against Argentinian government - such as #opargentina #iberoamerica. When Attacker will click " Fire ", a JavaScript will sends 1,000 HTTP requests with the message " We are LEGION! " that perform DoS attacks of Given Target URL. This Application is Available to Download here .

Android.Bmaster Exploits root access to connect to Botnet A new piece of Android malware named Android.Bmaster , first highlighted by researcher Xuxian Jiang at North Carolina State University, was uncovered on a third-party marketplace and is bundled with a legitimate application for configuring phone settings, Symantec researcher Cathal Mullaney wrote in a blog . This Malware is estimated to affect between 10,000 and 30,000 phones on any given day. The malware, mostly found on Chinese phones, works by using GingerBreak, a tool that gives users root access to Android 2.3 Gingerbread.  RootSmart is designed to escape detection by being named " com.google.android.smart, " which the same name as a settings app included by default with Android operating systems. Mullaney explained that once the malware is installed on the Android phone, an outbound connection from the infected phone to a remote server is generated." The malware posts some user and phone-specific data to t

Mobile Based Wireless Network MiTM Attack Illustration Bilal Bokhari from zer0byte.com Illustrated perfect example of Mobile Based Wireless Network MiTM Attack on his blog. Bilal want to share this article with our Readers at THN, Have a look : If we look at the history of computer development, the computer developers/engineers just 10 years back did not have any clue as to how this industry is going to be, the way this industry we have today. The Computers and its applications nowadays are more powerful and much smarter than ever before. Computer applications are used in every industry like engineering, designing, music programming, web development etc which enables their users to come up with amazing products every day. So far so good the story of the computer development sounds amazing but there is a problem with its development. When computer applications are developed, they are not particularly a complete perfect solution. They contain some flaws or bugs which can be exploi

Wifi Protector - Protect Your Android From Wi-Fi Sniffing Attacks The only app that is able to countermeasure " Man In The Middle " attacks on Android platform - Wifi Protector . No other app provides this type of high network security. Protects your phone from tools like FaceNiff, Cain & Abel, ANTI, ettercap, DroidSheep, NetCut, and all others that try to hijack your session via "Man In The Middle" through ARP spoofing / ARP poisoning. WifiKill can't take you offline with this app installed. The "Immunity" feature is the only one that requires root, all other features work without root access. Features - Uses very few resources - Uses no resources if Wi-Fi is disabled - Nearly zero battery consumption - Requires very few permissions. Requests only absolutely necessary permissions - Undetectable by the bad guy - 100% silent and passive inside the network. Generates no noise - Highly customizable notifications - Plays ringtone on atta

Another Malware from Android Market infect Millions of Users Malware might have infected more than 5 million Android mobile devices via deliberately corrupted apps sold in the Android Marketplace, according to security firm Symantec . They reckoned Android.Counterclank, a slight variant of Android.Tonclank . Symantec explains that the malicious code appears in a package called " apperhand ", and a service under the same name can been seen running on the infected device when it's executed. According to Symantec, the Trojan has been identified in 13 different apps in the Android Marketplace. Symantec's Security Response Team Director, Kevin Haley said:" They don't appear to be real publishers. There aren't rebundled apps, as we've seen so many times before. " Symantec also noted that this slimy piece of malware has the highest distribution of any malware identified so far this year and may actually be the largest malware infection seen by Android users in the operating systems short