A new BRATA variant discovered on Android can now wipe out all phone's data
By MYBRANDBOOK
Android is the most popular operating system in the world, with more users than any other, thus becoming a juicy target for cyber-criminals. The platform has been targeted time and time again over the years with varying degrees of success.
One malware that has proved to be particularly difficult to shake off has been BRATA, a remote access trojan that has been used to steal banking details in the past. And now to make things worse, an updated version of the malware has been discovered in the wild, and it has a few new capabilities - including the ability to wipe your phone’s data as a kill-switch.
A report from computer security firm Cleafy outlines how this new BRATA variant operates. In short, it has now been updated to attempt to evade antivirus scanners, keylog, and factory reset the smartphone. There are different variants of BRATA aimed at different audiences, and it targets e-banking users in the UK, Poland, Italy, Spain, China, and Latin America.
BRATA.A added the GPS tracking feature and factory reset ability, and BRATA.B has the same features plus more obfuscated code and tailored overlay pages for specific banks to capture login details. The solution used to deploy the malware on smartphones through BRATA.C is to use a primary app that can then download and install a secondary app with the malware.
So how to avoid being infected? The best way to avoid this is to be careful about which apps you provide accessibility or admin access to. BRATA makes use of accessibility service permissions to view what’s on your screen, including screenshots and user keystrokes. The biggest change though is the introduction of a remote factory reset, which appears to be executed once a user’s banking details have been successfully stolen. It is also executed when BRATA suspects it is being run in a virtual environment. This can only be done if you give the app administrator access on your phone.
Typically, the best way to avoid getting caught out is to never give accessibility permissions or administrator permissions to any app and to only install apps from recognized distribution platforms.
Singapore to remove One-Time Passwords from Bank Accounts
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, clients who utilise secur...
Is 375 million Airtel subscribers database breached?
When a hacker claims to have accessed and put up for sale a customer databa...
The government of India intends to construct a single portal f
A single portal will be launched by the Indian government to list all of it...
OpenAI offers GPT-4o, a faster model available to all users at
GPT-4o, a faster and more sophisticated AI model, is made available to all...
Icons Of India : Dilip Asbe
At present, Dilip Asbe is heading National Payments Corporation of Ind...
ICONS OF INDIA : ROSHNI NADAR MALHOTRA
Roshni Nadar Malhotra is the Chairperson of HCLTech, a leading global ...
Icons Of India : NATARAJAN CHANDRASEKARAN
Natarajan Chandrasekaran (Chandra) is the Chairman of Tata Sons, the h...
PFC - Power Finance Corporation Ltd
PFC is a leading financial institution in India specializing in power ...
RailTel Corporation of India Limited
RailTel is a leading telecommunications infrastructure provider in Ind...
CERT-IN - Indian Computer Emergency Response Team
CERT-In is a national nodal agency for responding to computer security...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO- Micron Technology
Sanjay Mehrotra, the President and CEO of Micron Technology, is at the...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Thomas Kurian, CEO- Google Cloud
Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud, has been instrumental in expan...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Dheeraj Pandey, CEO, DevRev
Dheeraj Pandey, Co-founder and CEO at DevRev , has a remarkable journe...