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Monday, February 3, 2025

New Tria stealer intercepts textual content messages on Android


Getting married is actually some of the essential occasions in anybody’s life. And in lots of cultures, it’s customary to ask a whole bunch of company to the celebration — together with some you barely know. Cybervillains make the most of such traditions, utilizing marriage ceremony invites as bait to launch assaults on Android smartphone customers.

Right here’s what menace actors have give you this time, and tips on how to defeat it.

How weddings and APKs are linked

It’s possible you’ll already learn about our international menace intelligence community — Kaspersky Safety Community (KSN). In 2024, we noticed a number of suspicious and clearly malicious APK samples circulating in each Malaysia and Brunei. On the similar time, social networks had been buzzing with Android customers of those self same international locations complaining about having their WhatsApp accounts hacked, or receiving suspicious APKs by means of WhatsApp or different messenger apps.

Connecting the dots, we deduced that cybercriminals had been sending Android customers in Brunei and Malaysia marriage ceremony invites within the type of an APK, which victims had been urged to put in on their very own gadgets themselves. Within the message, the attacker begins by apologizing for inviting the recipient to such an essential occasion by means of WhatsApp fairly than in particular person, then means that the consumer discover the time and place of the celebration within the hooked up file — which turned out to be the identical malicious APK that we present in KSN.

Examples of wedding invitations sent by attackers in the Indonesian language

Examples of marriage ceremony invites despatched by attackers within the Indonesian language

The scheme makes use of two variations of the identical stealer (one appeared in March 2024, the opposite with added performance in August), which we’ve referred to as Tria — after the title of the consumer who seems to be accountable for supporting and even conducting the whole marketing campaign.

What the Tria stealer does

The malware primarily harvests information from textual content and e-mail messages, but in addition reads name and message logs that it later sends to the C2 server by means of varied Telegram bots. Naturally, the attackers don’t do that out of their love of studying different individuals’s correspondence. All stolen information is used to hack victims’ Telegram, WhatsApp, and different accounts, after which message their contacts asking for cash. Nonetheless, an much more disagreeable situation is feasible: attackers may acquire entry to the sufferer’s on-line banking accounts by requesting and intercepting OTP codes wanted for login.

To disguise itself, the stealer employs social engineering ways: hiding behind a gear icon, it mimics a system software to get the permissions it wants from the consumer. The malware wants ten permissions in whole, together with entry to community exercise and sending/studying textual content messages. For particulars on what different permissions Tria requests and the way precisely the stealer works, see the full put up on our Securelist weblog.

It’s identified at current that the assaults had been restricted to customers in Malaysia and Brunei, and never focused at any particular people; nevertheless, the cybervillains might resolve to broaden their attain going ahead. And in relation to the bogus invitation that results in putting in the APK, the scope isn’t restricted to weddings — future assaults may exploit non secular ceremonies, birthdays… you title it. So be vigilant, arm your self with dependable safety, and skim our tips about tips on how to fight this stealer and different malware for Android.

Methods to guard in opposition to the Tria stealer

The easy methodology of distribution makes it pretty straightforward to guard your self in opposition to:

  • By no means reply to strangers in messenger apps — particularly in the event that they ask you to obtain and set up one thing. Be cautious of such messages even when they arrive from individuals in your contact listing.
  • By no means open APKs downloaded from untrusted sources. If you’ll want to set up one thing in your smartphone, at all times use official app shops (although even these aren’t proof against malware) or developer web sites.
  • Set up Kaspersky for Android in your smartphone to guard it from Tria.
  • Don’t grant apps extra permissions than they want. Be cautious of recent apps which are permission-hungry.
  • Harden your accounts in different messenger apps and social networks. You will discover in-depth guides to privateness settings on the Privateness Checker

On the finish of any scam-themed put up, we normally suggest establishing two-factor authentication (2FA) for all functions and providers the place it’s potential. Nonetheless, within the battle in opposition to Tria, in addition to many different Trojans, 2FA with OTP by textual content isn’t a lot assist: this malware can intercept incoming messages, extract codes from them, and even delete such messages so that you by no means discover something.

As such, we advise utilizing an authenticator app to generate 2FA codes. Kaspersky Password Supervisor is the proper resolution — it securely generates OTPs and reliably shops passwords and confidential paperwork, with the choice to sync them throughout all of your gadgets.

It’s price noting that stealers are notably keen on hijacking Telegram accounts. To keep away from shedding yours, we suggest establishing a Telegram cloud password this very on the spot, utilizing Kaspersky Password Supervisor to create and retailer it. To learn the way to configure 2FA, check with our What to do in case your Telegram account is hacked put up.





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