Recently we’ve seen a disturbing amount of rising in banking trojans like FakeToken, Svpeng, and BankBot, they are presenting a significant menace to everyone storing their login credentials and relevant personal data.
A new banking trojan has come to light security researchers at SfyLabs have now discovered a new Android banking Trojan that is being rented on many dark web’s Hacker chat rooms for 500$ a month. Dubbed Red Alert 2.0, it’s been found out that this trojan has been written from scratch and is currently affecting around 60 banking and social media apps. The way it works is that whenever the potential victim opens up any of these apps the trojan takes over and asks the victim to re-enter their credentials and this is when that data is stolen.
The major source of distribution of this trojan is online hacking forums since last few months and its creators are continuously working to make it better and worse for us.
It is armed with the capability to block incoming calls from your bank and is also capable of waltzing past two-factor authentication systems by intercepting SMS text messages that the smartphone receives and passing them onto hackers.
Precautions to take Against such Android Banking Trojans
The best way to prevent yourself from being a victim of one such mobile banking Trojan is to avoid downloading apps via third-party app stores or links provided in SMS messages or emails.
Just to be on the safer side, go to Settings → Security and make sure “Unknown sources” option is turned off on your Android device that blocks installation of apps from unknown sources.
Most importantly, verify app permissions before installing any app, even from official Google Play Store, and if you find any application asking more than what it is meant for, just do not install it.
It is always a good idea to install an anti-virus app from a reputed vendor that can detect and block such Trojan before it can infect your device.
Also, always keep your system and apps up-to-date.
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