New malware discovered on Android is spreading via WhatsApp.
The effectiveness of a virus in a mobile operating system such as Android lies in its rapid propagation, which is why they tend to choose tools used by a large number of users daily such as email or the most widely used instant messaging client in the world, WhatsApp.
A new malware recently discovered on Android is spreading via WhatsApp through an advertising message that is being sent from one user to another.
New malware discovered on Android is spreading via WhatsApp
Information coming from The Hacker News echoing a report published by ESET antivirus researcher Lukas Stephanko confirms that there is a new malware on Android that spreads via WhatsApp by simply replying to any notification of a message from this app that appears as a link to a (malicious) Huawei Mobile app.
This malware takes advantage of WhatsApp’s quick reply feature, which allows us to reply to a message directly from the notifications, to send a reply to a received message automatically.
Once the user clicks on the link that arrives in the message, it redirects the user to a website very similar to Google Play Store.
Once installed, this malicious application asks for permission to have access to notifications, to run in the background, and to show itself on top of other applications. With all these permissions, it manages to overlap with other applications to steal our passwords and private data.
According to Stefanko himself, the current version of this malware is capable of sending automatic replies only to our WhatsApp contacts, a feature that could be extended to other messaging applications that also have the quick reply function from notifications.
This researcher also claims that, so far, he had not seen any malware on Android that can spread through messages from the Facebook-owned messaging app.
Due to the great danger posed by this type of malware, we recommend that you verify both whether the application is created by a real developer and the permissions requested by the application before installing an app from outside the Google Play Store.
