New Octo Banking Trojan Spreading via Fake Apps on Google Play Store

[silversurfer]

Content source

https://thehackernews.com/2022/04/new-octo-banking-trojan-spreading-via.html

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.

The ultimate goal, ThreatFabric said, is to trigger the "automatic initiation of fraudulent transactions and its authorization without manual efforts from the operator, thus allowing fraud on a significantly larger scale."

Other notable features of Octo include logging keystrokes, carrying out overlay attacks on banking apps to capture credentials, harvesting contact information, and persistence measures to prevent uninstallation and evade antivirus engines.

"Rebranding to Octo erases previous ties to the Exobot source code leak, inviting multiple threat actors looking for opportunity to rent an allegedly new and original trojan," ThreatFabric noted.
"Its capabilities put at risk not only explicitly targeted applications that are targeted by overlay attack, but any application installed on the infected device as ExobotCompact/Octo is able to read content of any app displayed on the screen and provide the actor with sufficient information to remotely interact with it and perform on-device fraud (ODF)."

New Octo Banking Trojan Spreading via Fake Apps on Google Play Store

Rogue Android apps on Google Play Store are infecting users' devices with the Octo Banking Trojan, which targets banks and other financial institution

thehackernews.com

 

[superleeds27]

Get antivirus software and protect your system from virus attacks.

Or just don't download suspicious/weird apps.

 

[M4RT1NE2]

I try not to install apps from Google Play. I do not play games
I have never and will never use online banking on a cell phone.
My phone security is Bitdefender Mobile Security

 

[Dark Knight]

I have never and will never use online banking on a cell phone.

I could not agree more, banking with a cellphone is just begging to have your credentials and money stolen

 

[superleeds27]

I could not agree more, banking with a cellphone is just begging to have your credentials and money stolen

Not really.

Banking apps can be safer than online banking.

Apps have security built in and most mobile banking apps don’t store your bank details directly on your phone but instead access them from a secure data centre, this means your mobile itself will never hold your personal bank information.

 

[Dark Knight]

Not really.

Banking apps can be safer than online banking.

Apps have security built in and most mobile banking apps don’t store your bank details directly on your phone but instead access them from a secure data centre, this means your mobile itself will never hold your personal bank information.

Ok ..... I have yet to see a cell phone or "smart phone" that is totally secure, let me re-phrase that .... REMOTELY secure, cell phone apps have more security holes than Swiss cheese, it has also become the norm for people to access sensitive information via hotspots also , ANOTHER big security no-no.
So you see , it doesn't really matter whether the information is stored on your phone or pulled from a data center, wherever it is being pulled from the information can be had, just depends who wants it and how bad do they want it.
To be honest , I don't even trust online banking and I will avoid it whenever possible, there is something to be said about walking into a physical bank and dealing with the people that handle your money one on one.