How Hackers Can Access Your Money If You Answer Their Calls

<p><strong>Android users have been identified as potential victims to a malware scam that seeks to obtain personal information&comma; through their phone&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>By answering a simple phone call&comma; users become at risk of having their digital banking credentials stolen&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Recently&comma; a malware named BRATA was discovered in Italy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As part of the scam&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;threat actors” contact Android users who are victims of SMS attacks to steal their online banking information&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Cleafy researchers say the variant&comma; which is new&comma; has the ability to go undetected by the vast majority of AV scanners&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Their research further stated that the malware was only previously discovered in Brazil&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There&comma; it was distributed through Google Play Store applications&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In June 2021&comma; this Android scam was identified using SMS phishing&comma; also known as smishing&comma; to distribute various Android applications&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Earlier this month&comma; The Sun reported that malware disguised as banking&comma; fitness and document scanning apps had gained access to the phones of over 300&comma;000 Android users&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The nefarious Trojan software was able to log keystrokes and remotely send personal data to offsite criminals&comma; then hack messaging apps and spread the infection to other phones in the same network&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>A November report by ThreatFabric detailed the infected apps&comma; which included QR code readers&comma; crypto wallets and document scanners&comma; and have been downloaded by a total of more than 300&comma;000 users&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The apps seem innocuous&comma; and according to ThreatFabric&comma; the malware can even be dormant when first downloaded&comma; then activated remotely to harvest information&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you believe your phone is infected&comma; the first thing to do is delete any of the suspicious apps as quickly as possible and run an anti-virus scan&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Also&comma; if there is a sudden spike in your data or battery usage&comma; it could be that malware is running background tasks on your device&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Check to make sure none of your friends have received mysterious messages from you&comma; especially with strange links&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Malware can use your phone to send messages to people in your contacts list&comma; and further infect your network&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Your best options for protection&colon; installing strong antivirus software and doing regular security checks&comma; and making sure you’re always on the latest operating system&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-family&colon; 'times new roman'&comma; times&semi;"><em><strong>Culled from UK Sun<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;