Jakarta –

Data theft is still widespread. One of the reasons could be from applications on your smartphone, especially Android via malware.

Zimperium zLAbs, a cyber company that claims malware called GriftHorse stole hundreds of millions of dollars despite only being active for five months between November 2020 and April 2021. The mode is to offer free gifts through prior data theft through premium application services.

“This rogue Android app looks harmless to read its description and ask for permission, but that false trust changes when users are paid each month for premium services that they subscribe to without their knowledge and consent,” said the Zimperium researchers Aazim Yaswant and Nipun Gupta in his report, quoted from The Hacker News via detikInet, Friday (October 1st, 2021).

After users download an application containing GriftHorse (malware), they take advantage of the victim’s negligence and register the victim’s number with a subscription premium SMS service. First of all, this malware will provide various notifications with the lure of free gifts.

When the victim clicks on the notification, they are redirected to a special website that asks the victim to enter a phone number on the pretext of confirming the win. It turns out that the phone number actually instructs the victim to subscribe to the scammers’ premium SMS service.

This premium SMS service can suck up the victim’s balance for 30 euros or around 500 thousand rupees (1 euro = 16,572 rupees). There are at least 200 Android applications that contain the malware.

Millions of victims came from the US, UK, Brazil, Australia, India and even Indonesia. The types of applications identified are types of application tools, entertainment, personalization, lifestyle, online dating, and others. One of them has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. Below is a list of these malicious applications.

(the the)