Banking trojans remained the most threatening attack against the mobile security landscape last year. Although there was a low rate in the overall mobile malware threat in the past year, studies revealed approximately a hundred thousand new strains of mobile banking trojans in under a year.
Based on an analysis, most of these new malware variants relied on legitimate app stores such as the Play Store to bait users into downloading malicious software that appeared legitimate and trustworthy.
The tally uncovered over 97,000 new mobile banking trojans strains last year. Moreover, there are about 18,000 new mobile ransomware trojans and more than 3 million compromised installation packages.
Researchers also revealed the three banking trojans responsible for the most conducted attacks last year, including Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Svpeng, Banker.AndroidOS.Agent, and Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Anubis. These newly discovered trojans had obtained new capabilities from accessing the user’s current session to intercepting outgoing calls to record the targeted smartphone screen.
The researcher’s report also revealed that most of these attacks that leverage the mobile banking trojans have targeted users in Australia, Japan, Turkey, Croatia, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Austria, and Norway.
However, the researchers found an interesting discovery regarding a Gamethieft-type mobile trojan that exfiltrate the account credentials from the mobile version of a shooting game called PUBG.
The researchers have already found new mobile banking trojans this year.
Since the start of 2022, researchers have found several new mobile banking variants. One example is the recently discovered Xenomorph malware that has compromised more than 50,000 Android smartphones. The malware was spread through Google Play Store as a fake performance-boosting application.
Based on reports, this year’s new trojan capabilities include account take-overs, conducting unauthorised transactions, and banking details exfiltration.
There are also three new forms of the BRATA banking trojan known capable of data wiping and obfuscation techniques. The targeted regions of these compromised apps are Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Latin Americas.
To remain safe against these attacks, experts suggest that users avoid applications that offer too good functionalities to be accurate. It is also recommended to check the reviews and feedback before downloading the desired application.
