A new malicious app has appeared on the Play Store and has already claimed over 50,000 victims. It is not news that the Google store is constantly being targeted by malicious people, who are increasingly good at evading the American giant’s efforts to protect the sensitive information of its users.
Which app is it?
The app in question is Fast Cleaner by the developer “ilzeeva4”, apparently, a trivial tool to save battery and improve the performance of your smartphone (features that are often coveted by users), and was installed by over 50,000 users before Big G exposed the real intentions of the app.
Fast Cleaner was the most classic of the “Trojan horses” (a banking Trojan specifically) that targeted the banking data of European users (the target was 56 European banks), to steal credentials, intercept text messages and notifications behind the ‘unsuspecting user.
The discovery was made known by security researchers at ThreatFabric, who discovered and thoroughly documented the dynamics of how this new malware, dubbed “Xenomorph”, worked on infected smartphones, finding many similarities with another banking trojan called “Alien” which was discovered a few months ago.
Fortunately, “Xenomorph” was discovered early in its development and therefore many of its malevolent abilities were not yet operational at the time of discovery: all this perhaps makes “Xenomorph” less dangerous than “Alien” or the ben most popular “Joker”.
However, these features could be activated at any time both on smartphones with Fast Cleaner still installed and could strike through new malicious apps that have not yet been published or discovered.
What can you do to protect yourself?
The first thing to do is to immediately uninstall the app in question (Fast Cleaner). However, simply deleting the app may not be enough to get rid of the threat, since a few lines of malicious code may still have been left inside the affected smartphone. Affected users are advised to check their bank statements for unauthorized transactions, contact their bank, and change passwords frequently.
Another good security measure is to take advantage of two-factor authentication, using a second device (such as a backup phone or computer) to make access to the various services more secure.
Finally, it is always good to check the origin of the Android apps, even those present on the Google Play Store, by checking user reviews and, perhaps, carrying out a search on the developer.