First Android Malware Family Called “ZNIU” that Exploits Dangerous Dirty COW Vulnerability

An Android Malware Family called “ZNIU” Discovered that Exploits the  Dirty COW Vulnerability into Android Platform and  it performs silent Attacks in Android Platform since last year.

Dirty COW is a Very Dangerous Linux privilege escalation Vulnerability that leads an attacker to gain root access on targeted system and Few Months Before This Vulnerability Discovered in Linux Distribution such as Redhat.

According to Trend Micro Research, ZNIU Malware Developed to Exploit the Dirty COW Vulnerability that is serious Future of the ZNIU Malware.

Last Month ZNIU Detected in more than 40 Countries and Major Victims Infected in China and India . This Variant Detected in Other Countries Aswell such as U.S, Japan, Canada, Germany, and Indonesia.

Based on the Trend Micro Database, shows that more than 1,200 malicious apps that carry ZNIU were found in malicious websites with an existing rootkit that exploits Dirty COW, disguising themselves as pornography and game apps, among others.

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How Does Dirty COW Exploit In Android

Initially, Users Infected by Downloading Pornography  Apps in some Malicious Website that will Trick to Download other Apps which carrying the ZNIU Malware and unknowingly installed in the victims Android Mobile.

Once it’s Successfully Installed into Users Mobile then it will communicate with its  C&C server and Download an Exploitation code into Users systems.

Dirty COW Infection Chain

Later, System Local Privilege will be Escalated by  Dirty COW and Break the System Restriction to Provide a Backdoor.

This Backdoor Will allow attacker to gain Remote control Access in future and it leads to Theft many information that belongs to infected users.

After entering the main UI of the device, the malware will harvest the carrier information of the user. It then transacts with the carrier through an SMS-enabled payment service, allowing the malware operator to pose as the device owner.

Once Victims Mobile has compromised, Attacker Collecting Money using carrier’s payment service of Victim.

This ZNIU  Malware Using Encryption Technique to Evade the Reverse Engineering Technique with malicious DEX code.

Investigation Revealed That it uses the broadcast receiver to activate the exploit code once the user connects the device to a network or by simply plugging it into a power source. The malware then directly transmits and executes the malicious native codes. Trend Micro Said.