Android Gooligan: If you have one smartphone Android would be good to check if it has been hacked. A new Android malware that has already breached over 1 million Google accounts and infected around 13.000 Appliances every day.
They called it Gooligan and can root Android devices to steal email addresses and control tokens identity which are stored.
With this information, attackers are able to violate your Google Account and access sensitive information from Google apps such as Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite.
Researchers found traces of Gooligan's code in dozens of legitimate apps search Android apps found in third-party app stores. If you use any of these apps on your Android device, the malware starts sending the information inside it to the hacker's (C&C) server.
"Then Gooligan downloads a rootkit from the C&C server that can exploit many vulnerabilities in Android 4 and 5, including the well-known VROOT (CVE-2013-6282) and Towelroot (CVE-2014-3153)," the researchers said.
"If the root is successful, the attacker has complete control of the device and can execute privileged commands remotely."
According to CheckPoint security investigators, who unveiled the malware, any user of an earlier version of the Android operating system (4.x Android Jelly Bean, KitKat and 5.x, Lollipop is at risk.) These are available at 74% of Android devices in use today.
"These exploits can hit many devices today, because the security patches that fix them may not be available for some versions of Android, or were not installed by the user," the researchers added.
Once it hacks any Android device, Gooligan starts generating revenue for the hackers by buying apps from the Google Play Store and writing comments on behalf of the owner of the phone. The malware also installs adware to generate additional revenue for the hackers.
Google's official position on the issue, as we received from the company:
"We appreciate its contribution Check Point with which we have worked together to understand and deal with such issues. It is worth highlighting that in our ongoing effort to protect users from the "family" of malware Ghost Push, we have taken numerous measures and we are taking protective measures to improve security throughout our ecosystem Android. In particular, our actions include: the revocation of token Google Accounts of users whose devices have been infected, providing clear instructions to reconnect safely, disabling related applications from infected devices, ongoing development of verification applications, and ongoing improvements of SafetyNet to protect users from these applications in the future and our collaboration with ISPss) to eliminate this malware completely. "
Adrian Ludwig, Android Security Director
How to check if your Google Account has been compromised?
Check Point has published an online tool to help you check if your Android-running device is infected with malicious Gooligan software. Just open “Gooligan Checker” and enter your email address (Google) to find out if you have been hacked.
If you find yourself contaminated by yourself, Adrian Ludwig, director of Google's Android security, recommends that you perform a clean installation of the operating system on your device.
Let's mention that with this tool Check Point will collect as many emails as it has never collected since it started operating…
https://gooligan.checkpoint.com/
