Hacking: fake WhatsApp and Telegram rob your mobile
Viral advertising campaign
To facilitate the distribution of these fake applications, hackers have used, among other things, advertising campaigns on YouTube. The most naive users then click on the link, tricking them into downloading infected versions of WhatsApp and Telegram via fake sites. Why this strategy? Well, it is above all linked to the target, here largely the Chinese audience.
In China, these applications are banned from stores, pushing users wishing to install them to go through the APK download. The campaigns carried out by the pirates are therefore based in the mass, closing the trap on victims. But it’s not just Asia that is concerned: young people from all countries – fond of new features – are too…
Cyber security company ESET has detected trojans in Telegram and WhatsApp that steal #crypto.
📕 https://t.co/TteL1jsQQ9 pic.twitter.com/2Q6DNy1Prx
— 🟩 Dr. Martin Hiesboeck (@MHiesboeck) March 20, 2023
How does this virus attack your device?
These fake versions of WhatsApp and Telegram are trojans, viruses that infiltrate your Android or Windows device under the cover of a seemingly legitimate application. Once deployed, the malware goes after your clipboard. ESET Research, at the origin of this discovery, details in its report the functioning of this virus. The Clipper malware infiltrates the clipboard to retrieve exchanges, passwords and user credentials.
Crypto wallets still targeted
By recovering this data, the malware seeks to recover access to cryptocurrency wallets. It has become a real fashion: every month, new viruses are discovered, using increasingly fine techniques to infiltrate crypto accounts to steal the sums stored on them.
Well, what do you recommend to protect yourself? First, do not download an APK or an application that does not come from a store or an official site. On Android, prefer installation via the Play Store, on Windows it happens on the Microsoft Store.
With this base, your device will avoid a large part of the trojans in circulation on the Web! And with regard to cryptos, only use a “cold wallet” to protect your investments like Ledger keys which require human intervention at each bottom movement.
Cryptos stored on mobile wallets: the new Eldorado for pirates!
