banking Trojan | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

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. "M...

An analysis of the mobile threat landscape in 2022 shows that Spain and Turkey are the most targeted countries for malware campaigns, even as a mix of new and existing banking trojans are increasingly targeting Android devices to conduct on-device fraud (ODF). Other frequently targeted countries include Poland, Australia, the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Italy, France, and Portugal. "The most worrying leitmotif is the increasing attention to On-Device Fraud (ODF)," Dutch cybersecurity company ThreatFabric  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Just in the first five months of 2022 there has been an increase of more than 40% in malware families that abuse Android OS to perform fraud using the device itself, making it almost impossible to detect them using traditional fraud scoring engines." Hydra ,  FluBot  (aka Cabassous),  Cerberus ,  Octo , and  ERMAC  accounted for the most active banking trojans based on the number of samples obser...

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun revolutionizing Identity Access Management (IAM), reshaping how cybersecurity is approached in this crucial field. Leveraging AI in IAM is about tapping into its analytical capabilities to monitor access patterns and identify anomalies that could signal a potential security breach. The focus has expanded beyond merely managing human identities — now, autonomous systems, APIs, and connected devices also fall within the realm of AI-driven IAM, creating a dynamic security ecosystem that adapts and evolves in response to sophisticated cyber threats. The Role of AI and Machine Learning in IAM AI and machine learning (ML) are creating a more robust, proactive IAM system that continuously learns from the environment to enhance security. Let's explore how AI impacts key IAM components: Intelligent Monitoring and Anomaly Detection AI enables continuous monitoring of both human and non-human identities , including APIs, service acc...

A number of rogue Android apps that have been cumulatively installed from the official Google Play Store more than 50,000 times are being used to target banks and other financial entities. The rental banking trojan, dubbed  Octo , is said to be a rebrand of another Android malware called ExobotCompact, which, in turn, is a "lite" replacement for its Exobot predecessor, Dutch mobile security firm ThreatFabric  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Exobot is also likely said to have paved the way for a separate descendant called Coper, that was initially  discovered  targeting Colombian users around July 2021, with newer infections targeting Android users in different European Countries. "Coper malware apps are modular in design and include a multi-stage infection method and many defensive tactics to survive removal attempts," Cybersecurity company Cyble  noted  in an analysis of the malware last month. Like other Android banking trojans, ...

Threat actors have been distributing malicious applications under the guise of seemingly harmless shopping apps to target customers of eight Malaysian banks since at least November 2021. The attacks involved setting up fraudulent but legitimate-looking websites to trick users into downloading the apps, Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The copycat websites impersonated cleaning services such as Maid4u, Grabmaid, Maria's Cleaning, Maid4u, YourMaid, Maideasy and MaidACall and a pet store named PetsMore, all of which are aimed at users in Malaysia. "The threat actors use these fake e-shop applications to phish for banking credentials," ESET  said . "The apps also forward all SMS messages received by the victim to the malware operators in case they contain 2FA codes sent by the bank." The targeted banks include Maybank, Affin Bank, Public Bank Berhad, CIMB bank, BSN, RHB, Bank Islam Malaysia, and Hong Leong Bank. Th...

A new email phishing campaign has been spotted leveraging the tactic of conversation hijacking to deliver the IcedID info-stealing malware onto infected machines by making use of unpatched and publicly-exposed Microsoft Exchange servers. "The emails use a social engineering technique of conversation hijacking (also known as thread hijacking)," Israeli company Intezer said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "A forged reply to a previous stolen email is being used as a way to convince the recipient to open the attachment. This is notable because it increases the credibility of the phishing email and may cause a high infection rate." The latest wave of attacks, detected in mid-March 2022, is said to have targeted organizations within energy, healthcare, law, and pharmaceutical sectors. IcedID, aka BokBot, like its counterparts TrickBot and  Emotet , is a  banking trojan  that has evolved to become an entry point for more sophisticated threats, including hu...

The threat actor behind a nascent Android banking trojan named  SharkBot  has managed to evade Google Play Store security barriers by masquerading as an antivirus app. SharkBot, like its malware counterparts  TeaBot ,  FluBot , and  Oscorp  (UBEL), belongs to a category of financial trojans capable of siphoning credentials to initiate money transfers from compromised devices by circumventing multi-factor authentication mechanisms. It first emerged on the scene in November 2021. Where SharkBot stands apart is in its ability to carry out the unauthorized transactions via Automatic Transfer Systems (ATS), which stands in contrast to TeaBot, which requires a live operator to interact with the infected devices to conduct the malicious activities. "The ATS features allow the malware to receive a list of events to be simulated, and they will be simulated in order to do the money transfers," Alberto Segura and Rolf Govers, malware analysts at cybersecurity fir...

A new Android banking trojan with over 50,000 installations has been observed distributed via the official Google Play Store with the goal of targeting 56 European banks and carrying out harvesting sensitive information from compromised devices. Dubbed  Xenomorph  by Dutch security firm ThreatFabric, the in-development malware is said to share overlaps with another banking trojan tracked under the moniker Alien while also being "radically different" from its predecessor in terms of the functionalities offered. "Despite being a work-in-progress, Xenomorph is already sporting effective overlays and being actively distributed on official app stores," ThreatFabric's founder and CEO, Han Sahin, said. "In addition, it features a very detailed and modular engine to abuse accessibility services, which in the future could power very advanced capabilities, like ATS." Alien, a remote access trojan (RAT) with notification sniffing and authenticator-based 2FA ...

Two different Android banking Trojans, FluBot and Medusa, are relying on the same delivery vehicle as part of a simultaneous attack campaign, according to new research published by ThreatFabric. The ongoing side-by-side infections, facilitated through the same smishing (SMS phishing) infrastructure, involved the overlapping usage of "app names, package names, and similar icons," the Dutch mobile security firm said. Medusa, first discovered targeting Turkish financial organizations in July 2020, has undergone several iterations, chief among which is the ability to abuse accessibility permissions in Android to siphon funds from banking apps to an account controlled by the attacker. "Medusa sports other dangerous features like keylogging, accessibility event logging, and audio and video streaming — all these capabilities provide actors with almost full access to [a] victim's device," the researchers  said . The malware-ridden apps used in conjunction with Flu...

A financially-motivated malware campaign has compromised over 800 WordPress websites to deliver a banking trojan dubbed Chaes targeting Brazilian customers of Banco do Brasil, Loja Integrada, Mercado Bitcoin, Mercado Livre, and Mercado Pago. First documented by  Cybereason  in November 2020, the info-stealing malware is delivered via a sophisticated infection chain that's engineered to harvest sensitive consumer information, including login credentials, credit card numbers, and other financial information. "Chaes is characterized by the multiple-stage delivery that utilizes scripting frameworks such as JScript, Python, and NodeJS, binaries written in Delphi, and malicious Google Chrome extensions," Avast researchers Anh Ho and Igor Morgenstern  said . "The ultimate goal of Chaes is to steal credentials stored in Chrome and intercept logins of popular banking websites in Brazil." The attack sequence is triggered when users visit one of the infected websites...

The Android malware tracked as BRATA has been updated with new features that grants it the ability to record keystrokes, track device locations, and even perform a factory reset in an apparent bid to cover up fraudulent wire transfers. The latest variants, detected late last year, are said to be distributed through a downloader to avoid being detected by security software, Italian cybersecurity firm Cleafy said in a  technical write-up . Targets include banks and financial institutions in the U.K., Poland, Italy, and Latin America. "What makes Android RAT so interesting for attackers is its capability to operate directly on the victim devices instead of using a new device," Cleafy researchers  noted  in December 2021. "By doing so, Threat Actors (TAs) can drastically reduce the possibility of being flagged 'as suspicious', since the device's fingerprinting is already known to the bank." First seen in the wild at the end of 2018 and short for "B...

An ongoing  ZLoader  malware campaign has been uncovered exploiting remote monitoring tools and a nine-year-old flaw concerning Microsoft's digital signature verification to siphon user credentials and sensitive information. Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point Research, which has been tracking the sophisticated infection chain since November 2021, attributed it to a cybercriminal group dubbed MalSmoke , citing similarities with previous attacks. "The techniques incorporated in the infection chain include the use of legitimate remote management software (RMM) to gain initial access to the target machine," Check Point's Golan Cohen said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The malware then exploits Microsoft's digital signature verification method to inject its payload into a signed system DLL to further evade the system's defenses." A banking trojan at its core, ZLoader has been employed by many an attacker to steal cookies, passwords...

Infection chains associated with the multi-purpose Qakbot malware have been broken down into "distinct building blocks," an effort that Microsoft said will help to proactively detect and block the threat in an effective manner. The Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team  dubbed   Qakbot a "customizable chameleon that adapts to suit the needs of the multiple threat actor groups that utilize it." Qakbot  is believed to be the creation of a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group known as  Gold Lagoon . It is a prevalent information-stealing malware that, in recent years, has become a precursor to many critical and widespread ransomware attacks, offering a malware installation-as-a-service that enables many campaigns. First discovered in 2007, the modular malware — like  TrickBot  — has  evolved  from its early roots as a banking trojan to become a Swiss Army knife capable of data exfiltration and acting as a delivery mechanis...

The operators behind the Mekotio banking trojan have resurfaced with a shift in its infection flow so as to stay under the radar and evade security software, while staging nearly 100 attacks over the last three months. "One of the main characteristics […] is the modular attack which gives the attackers the ability to change only a small part of the whole in order to avoid detection," researchers from Check Point Research said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The latest wave of attacks are said to primarily target victims located in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Spain. The development comes after Spanish law enforcement agencies in July 2021  arrested  16 individuals belonging to a criminal network in connection with operating Mekotio and another banking malware called Grandoreiro as part of a social engineering campaign targeting financial institutions in Europe. The evolved version of the Mekotio malware strain is designed for compromising Windows systems wit...

The operators behind the BlackRock mobile malware have surfaced back with a new Android banking trojan called  ERMAC  that targets Poland and has its roots in the infamous Cerberus malware, according to the latest research. "The new trojan already has active distribution campaigns and is targeting 378 banking and wallet apps with overlays," ThreatFabric's CEO Cengiz Han Sahin said in an emailed statement. First campaigns involving ERMAC are believed to have begun in late August under the guise of the Google Chrome app. Since then, the attacks have expanded to include a range of apps such as banking, media players, delivery services, government applications, and antivirus solutions like  McAfee . Almost fully based on the notorious banking trojan  Cerberus , the Dutch cybersecurity firm's findings come from forum posts made by an actor named DukeEugene last month on August 17, inviting prospective customers to "rent a new android botnet with wide functionalit...

A newly spotted banking trojan has been caught leveraging legitimate platforms like YouTube and Pastebin to store its encrypted, remote configuration and commandeer infected Windows systems, making it the latest to join the  long list of malware  targeting Latin America (LATAM) after Guildma, Javali, Melcoz, Grandoreiro, Mekotio, Casbaneiro, Amavaldo, Vadokrist, and Janeleiro. The threat actor behind this malware family — dubbed " Numando " — is believed to have been active since at least 2018. "[Numando brings] interesting new techniques to the pool of Latin American banking trojans' tricks, like using seemingly useless ZIP archives or bundling payloads with decoy BMP images," ESET researchers  said  in a technical analysis published on Friday. "Geographically, it focuses almost exclusively on Brazil with rare campaigns in Mexico and Spain." Written in Delphi, the malware comes with an array of backdoor capabilities that allow it to control compr...

A mix of banking applications, cryptocurrency wallets, and shopping apps from the U.S. and Spain are the target of a newly discovered Android trojan that could enable attackers to siphon personally identifiable information from infected devices, including banking credentials and open the door for on-device fraud. Dubbed S.O.V.A. (referring to the Russian word for owl), the current version of the banking malware comes with myriad features to steal credentials and session cookies through web overlay attacks, log keystrokes, hide notifications, and manipulate the clipboard to insert modified cryptocurrency wallet addresses, with future plans to incorporate  on-device fraud through VNC , carry out DDoS attacks, deploy ransomware, and even intercept two-factor authentication codes. The malware was discovered in the beginning of August 2021 by researchers from Amsterdam-based cybersecurity firm ThreatFabric. Overlay attacks typically involve the theft of confidential user informatio...

Spanish law enforcement agencies on Wednesday arrested 16 individuals belonging to a criminal network in connection with operating two banking trojans as part of a social engineering campaign targeting financial institutions in Europe. The arrests were made in Ribeira (A Coruña), Madrid, Parla and Móstoles (Madrid), Seseña (Toledo), Villafranca de los barros (Badajoz), and Aranda de Duero (Burgos) following a year-long investigation codenamed "Aguas Vivas", the Civil Guard said in a statement. "Through malicious software, installed on the victim's computer by the technique known as 'email spoofing', [the group] would have managed to divert large amounts of money to their accounts," authorities  noted . Computer equipment, mobile phones, and documents were confiscated, and more than 1,800 spam emails were analyzed, enabling law enforcement to block transfer attempts totaling €3.5 million successfully. The campaign is said to have netted the actors €2...

Threat actors behind the infamous  TrickBot  malware have been linked to a new ransomware strain named "Diavol," according to the latest research. Diavol and Conti ransomware payloads were deployed on different systems in a case of an unsuccessful attack targeting one of its customers earlier this month, researchers from Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs said last week. TrickBot, a banking Trojan first detected in 2016, has been traditionally a Windows-based crimeware solution, employing different modules to perform a wide range of malicious activities on target networks, including credential theft and conduct ransomware attacks.  Despite efforts by law enforcement to neutralize the bot network, the ever-evolving malware has proven to be a  resilient threat , what with the Russia-based operators — dubbed " Wizard Spider " — quickly adapting new tools to carry out further attacks. Diavol is said to have been deployed in the wild in one incident to date. The sourc...