Οι χρήστες Android θα πρέπει να προσέχουν ιδιαίτερα: κυκλοφορεί ένα νέο malware μέσω του Google Play Store. Ονομάζεται "Facestealer", και μπορεί να κλέψει προσωπικές πληροφορίες που είναι αποθηκευμένες στο τηλέφωνό σας, να κλέψει τους κωδικούς πρόσβασης των social media και να σας βομβαρδίσει με επεμβατικές διαφημίσεις.
Security researchers from Doctor Web Anti-Virus They first discovered Facestealer hiding in 10 Android apps in July 2021, but the latest batch of downloads includes 200 malicious apps, almost all available in the Google Play Store and other third-party stores.
The problematic applications were usually:
Fake services VPN
Photo and camera editing applications
and - not surprisingly - cryptocurrency-related applications.
Οι 200 εφαρμογές έχουν αφαιρεθεί πλέον από το Google Play. Ωστόσο, πολλές από αυτές τις εφαρμογές κατάφεραν να συγκεντρώσουν χιλιάδες λήψεις μέσα στις λίγες εβδομάδες που ήταν διαθέσιμες. Φυσικά, οι χρήστες δεν κατεβάζουν εν γνώσει τους κακόβουλο λογισμικό - τέτοιες εφαρμογές συχνά φαίνονται κανονικές και μπορούν να ξεγελάσουν ακόμα και την Google.
Although Google Play has malware protection and scans all applications that are running on the service, malware developers have come up with very sophisticated ways to hide their intentions.
So even though Google scans look for malicious code there is code that is not malicious but gives commands to download the malicious loadafter the installation of the application from an external server.
This means that the specific methods contaminations could take weeks to complete. It's a major flaw in Google's and Android's security measures, and it's not something that can be fixed immediately, at least.
So since it seems impossible to avoid malware on Android you should be careful what you download.
How to Avoid Malware on Android
A malicious application:
- It demands too many rights. A VPN for example does not need access to your camera.
- Απαιτεί εγκαταστάσεις "πρόσθετου λογισμικού" ή προσπαθεί να φορτώσει επιπλέον εφαρμογές.
- Sends you spam with ads.
- He suddenly asks for payment information to continue using free features
- It is an obvious code copy of other popular applications.
- Available only in makeshift or unknown third-party stores.
Obviously, with the above you will not discover every fake app, so you should check the reviews. And I mean really read all the reviews. Don't just check the app's star rating or top-rated reviews. If you notice a bunch of 1-star reviews pointing out various malicious behavior and a lot of 5-star reviews that don't contain much information, then the app is probably fake.
Of course if you have any doubts, do not download it. If you download something that later turns out to be a scam, delete it, and leave a review to warn others. You should also report the application to Google.
