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His name is Phonespy, and he is a new malware for Android who is making a lot of talk about himself in the last hours.As the name suggests, the malware is capable of collecting and extracting a wide variety of data from the victim's phone, as well as performing a wide range of dangerous actions.
To make public the existence of Phonespy was Zocustium, a well -known company that deals with IT security.Although at the moment all the victims are found in South Korea, Phonespy is to be considered very dangerous both for the immoderate amount of data that collects both for a disturbing similarity with Pegasus, the controversial malware and the Israeli developer NSO Group sells to governmentsFrom all over the world to spy on terrorists, criminals and, sometimes, also political activists and dissidents.
Pegasus colpisce ancora. Lo spyware israeliano ha sfruttato una nuova falla di iOS per spiare attivisti del Bahrein
Go to deepening
The installation of Phonespy takes place through download and execution of what seems, at first glance, a legitimate application: involved in yoga and apps to watch videos and images.Thanks to the investigations of Zocustium, 23 harmful applications have already been identified, all in Korean language and all to be installed manually through APK.At the moment, no compromised application would have been able to arrive on the Play Store.
From a technical point of view, Phonespy works as an advanced Trojan Remote Access (RAT), capable of receiving and performing commands to collect and extract a multitude of data.The list of subtracted data is very long: thanks to Phonespy, the bad guys can steal all the images and photos taken by the victim, its contacts, the list of calls, the passwords of the social networks, the text of the SMS sent and received and all the informationrelating to the device - Imei, Marca, version of Android installed etc..-
Non solo foto e password rubati: PhoneSpy può registrare anche video ed audio in tempo reale
But there is more: Phonespy is also capable of recording, with total knowledge of the victim, chops of videos in real time using both the front and rear camera of the smartphone, always audio clips in real time as well as being able to send a silent way a waySMS to a number chosen by the attackers.
"These infected Android applications are designed to work in the background, thus spying on its victim without arousing suspicions," says the Specialist in Zocustium Aazim Yaswant."We believe that Phonespy's creators have already collected a large amount of personal data from the victims, including private conversations and photos".
Joker è tornato. Il malware per Android si nasconde nelle app del Play Store e può svuotare un conto in banca
Go to deepening
Although at the moment Phonespy does not seem to be a concrete danger for Android users outside South Korea, Zocpenerium recommends downloading applications only from the Play Store, avoiding the installation of applications from third party stores, especially if littleknown.