The Limited Times

Cerberus bank virus alert, hidden in the Play Store app

7/15/2020, 10:35:21 PM


For now it has mainly affected Spain (ANSA)A banking virus disguised as an app that stole data from thousands of users, especially in Spain. It's called Cerberus and was discovered by researchers from Avast's Mobile Threat Labs team. He was hiding on Google Play Store, Google's digital store, inside the legitimate currency conversion app called 'Calculador de Moneda', which was launched in Spain in March, has already totaled thousands of d...

A banking virus disguised as an app that stole data from thousands of users, especially in Spain. It's called Cerberus and was discovered by researchers from Avast's Mobile Threat Labs team. He was hiding on Google Play Store, Google's digital store, inside the legitimate currency conversion app called 'Calculador de Moneda', which was launched in Spain in March, has already totaled thousands of downloads and it could also spread to other countries.

For the first few weeks, the app hid its nature, thus acquiring a user base to be hit, only later did it activate to try to steal bank account credentials, bypassing any security measures, including authentication two-factor. Cerberus, explained Ondrej David of Avast, once installed can overlap with a pre-existing banking app on the smartphone, waiting for users to access their bank accounts, then present a false login screen and steal their bank credentials and steal also text messages or any multi-factor authentication codes sent by sms.

In Italy, however, the Ursnif banking virus, discovered two years ago, which targets Windows PCs and is able to steal financial information, email credentials and other sensitive data, is still striking. According to the security company Check Point Software Security in June it had an impact on 13% of Italian organizations.