Beware!! New Android Malware That Can Read Your WhatsApp Messages & Take Screen Shots

A new Android malware that steals infected users WhatsApp messages and other sensitive data such as browsing history, photos.

This malware mainly developed to spying the targeted especially Android users and its unclear that what kind of surveillance attackers interested from the infected mobiles.

The source code of the malware associated file was found in Github page under the username called earthshakira.

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ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko discovered that the malware contains MainActivity.class that will start the OwnMe.class which will call the startService() Soon after onStartCommand() function is executed.

Malware authors using some persistence in order to hide their identity and avoid the suspicion by any security software.

Initially, the malware popups the toast( pop-up message) on the screen “Service started” which is the indication of the malware that still under development.

@LukasStefanko discovered and tweeted about a new spyware for Android that specifically targets WhatsApp.

Learn more about it in @GDataSoftwareAG's article here: https://t.co/cP0jYWnsiZ

— G DATA AV Lab (@GDataPH) September 28, 2018

How Does it Steal WhatsApp Messages & Other Data

This malware called various different functionality to perform various malicious activities by delivering messages to the targeted victims.

Whenever targeted victims receiving the message that contains “WhatsApp”, then the malware called the uploadWhatsApp() function which is used to steal the  WhatsApp database using the following query: “ipofthec2/db/upload_whatsapp.php and load to the attackers C2 server.

Same as if the message contains “browser history”, the element response from the JSON object v8 gets the return value of the function getHistory(). In this case, it steals currently only returns the saved bookmarks.

Similarly its using various other functions such as getContacts()., getCallLogs()., getBase64(v8.get(“path)), openCameraVideo() and other functions to steal the data such as Contacts, Fetch, Gallery, camera.

According to the gdatasoftware, This function returns the current battery level and the CPU usage. However, there is no implementation for a message check like with the commands above and hence that command is not actively used yet.

File Hashes:

SHA-256 4bed89b58c2ecf3455999dc8211c8a7e0f9e8950cb9aa83cd825b8372b1eaa3d

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