Do you have such apps on your smartphone? Better remove them quickly. These are banking Trojans

Cybersecurity specialists warn against further hacker attacks. They distribute applications on Google Play that impersonate well-known and popular programs. In fact, they are used to spy on users or steal data.

Dangerous Trojans are back. Hackers impersonate popular games

As the Czech branch of the Eset company writes, it alerts about the appearance of a wave of attacks on smartphone users. This time, cybercriminals took a liking to games popular among the youngest smartphone users, including favorite Minecraft.

Criminals create their own applications that impersonate popular apps, but in fact contain malware – e.g. Hiddad and Andreed Trojans. Pretending to be games, these applications, for example, display hundreds of advertisements, generate profits for cybercriminals, record sound, register keypresses (keyloggers), steal passwords or contain ransomware (demands a ransom for unlocking access to the smartphone), and can even activate the remote access.

Eset recommends paying attention primarily to applications installed by children on parents’ smartphones. The threat often hides in games that are offered for free in promotions, although in fact they are paid. The company’s team gives the game “My Singing Monsters Composer” as an example, which costs PLN 19.99 on our market. A clone of this application by cybercriminals has appeared on Google Play for free many times and has been downloaded by tens of thousands of people.

How to check if a real game or application or a malicious program is installed in the smartphone’s memory? First of all, we should make sure which company is the publisher of this particular app. The previously mentioned Minecraft on Google Play is made available by the creator of the game, i.e. Mojang studio. The name of the company publishing the application in the Google store can be found right below the name of the app.