Brata Android: the malware that will make you lose your memory!
Malware has a little too much fun with our smartphones to find devious paths to our data and even more to our bank accounts. After all, if you have the keys, you just have to help yourself since all our banking information is contained in our terminals. Pirates have fun, challenge each other and always find new methods. We regularly talk about it in our columns, whether it’s Joker, GriftHorse, BluStealer, FluBot, UltimaSMS or Pegasus, malware is everywhere. Today is on Brata’s upsurge as we lean.
Brata: the thief’s toolbox
Brata is not really new since he has been talked about from January 2019 when Kaspersky experts discovered it. From the “Trojan horse” family, it hid in applications that seemed completely normal and mainly attacked Brazil. His goal was simple: drain your bank account. To do this, he multiplied the methods to phish you, whether by push notifications, SMS, WhatsApp messages or even spoofed URLs to make you click where you shouldn’t. Initially, he primarily targeted Brazilian territory and had been discreet in recent months.
But we must always be wary of sleeping water, as society reminds us today Cleafy Labs. Their experts have indeed discovered that Brata has been coming back very strongly lately, with even more sophisticated options to achieve your ends. First of all, it now allows itself to trace your geolocation. The malware can also monitor your banking apps in real time. Hiding in an encrypted JAR or DEX package, it also has the strength to be invisible to antiviruses. Brata can even uninstall the latter out of the blue. You are then at his mercy and he only has to dig into your identifiers and other screenshots.
Of sad memory
Where the malware pushes the vice even further is that it can now attack the memory of your smartphone. Interfering in the options, it will format your phone which will then end up with its factory settings. Results ? Goodbye photos, videos, accounts and other data that the memory contained. Why is Brata acting like this? For erase one’s own tracks and not to arouse the suspicion of the victims. It no longer attacks only Brazil, but is spreading at high speed throughout Latin America, the United States, China, Poland, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. His modus operandi rather focuses on sending text messages pretending to be bank alerts. This new large-scale deployment is accompanied in addition – must believe that it is the fashion – of three variants.
#BRATA : three new variations observed for the #trojan bank, going as far as completely resetting the infected terminal! https://t.co/Y9CL7k8H5h #security #MaaS #application #Google #Play store #Android pic.twitter.com/Zx2SJhrvEf
— Association SOSOrdi.net (@SOSOrdinet) January 26, 2022
You have been warned and we invite you to remain vigilant on this Brata of very bad reputation. To properly protect your smartphone, do not hesitate to follow our advice to avoid very annoying hacks. Because if Brata had started to crack down on Google Play Store, this is not the case now since “he is currently focusing on phishing attempts by SMS…
