{"id":43687,"date":"2021-11-01T14:59:04","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T14:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packetstormsecurity.com\/news\/view\/32777\/Android-Has-Its-Head-In-The-Sand-With-AbstractEmu-Malware.html"},"modified":"2021-11-01T14:59:04","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T14:59:04","slug":"android-has-its-head-in-the-sand-with-abstractemu-malware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/android-has-its-head-in-the-sand-with-abstractemu-malware\/","title":{"rendered":"Android Has Its Head In The Sand With AbstractEmu Malware"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Brief<\/span> A new and dangerous form of malware for rooting Android phones has been spotted in 19 apps on Google’s Play store, as well as in several in the Amazon Appstore, the Samsung Galaxy Store, and other third-party sites.<\/p>\n

Dubbed AbstractEmu by bug-hunters at Lookout, who first spotted the code, the malware would give full access to all functions on an Android device and would be almost impossible to remove without doing a full system wipe. One of the infected apps, Lite Launcher, already had over 10,000 downloads before it was removed from the store.<\/p>\n

“We think the actors are a well-resourced group with financial motivation,” Lookout said<\/a>. “Their code-base and evasion techniques \u2013 such as the use of burner emails, names, phone numbers and pseudonyms \u2013 are quite sophisticated. We also found parallels between the malware and banking trojans, such as the untargeted distribution of their apps and the permissions they seek.”<\/p>\n