Who Got Hacked This Week? August 24 Edition

Android Malware Turns Apps into Spyware

Security researchers have uncovered a new, powerful Android malware framework that is being used by cybercriminals to turn legitimate apps into spyware with extensive surveillance capabilities—as part of what seems to be a targeted espionage campaign.

Legitimate Android applications when bundled with the malware framework, dubbed Triout, gain capabilities to spy on infected devices by recording phone calls, and monitoring text messages, secretly stealing photos and videos, and collecting location data—all without users’ knowledge.

The strain of Triout-based spyware apps was first spotted by the security researchers at Bitdefender on May 15 when a sample of the malware was uploaded to VirusTotal by somebody located in Russia, but most of the scans came from Israel.