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Picture: Jon Hunter
New Android malware can root contaminated gadgets to take full management and silently tweak system settings, in addition to evade detection utilizing code abstraction and anti-emulation checks.
The malware, dubbed AbstractEmu by safety researchers on the Lookout Menace Labs who discovered it, was bundled with 19 utility apps distributed by way of Google Play and third-party app shops (together with the Amazon Appstore, the Samsung Galaxy Retailer, Aptoide, and APKPure).
Apps bundling the malware included password managers and instruments like information savers and app launchers, all of them offering the performance they promised to keep away from elevating suspicions.
The malicious apps had been faraway from the Google Play Retailer after Lookout reported their discovery. Nevertheless, the opposite app shops are doubtless nonetheless distributing them.
Lite Launcher, an app launcher and one of many apps used to ship the AbstractEmu malware on unsuspecting Android customers’ gadgets, had over 10,000 downloads when taken down from Google Play.
“AbstractEmu doesn’t have any refined zero-click distant exploit performance utilized in superior APT-style threats, it’s activated just by the person having opened the app,” the Lookout researchers mentioned.
“Because the malware is disguised as useful apps, most customers will doubtless work together with them shortly after downloading.”
As soon as put in, AbstractEmu will start harvesting and sending system info to its command-and-control (C2) server whereas the malware waits for additional instructions.
System data collected by AbstractEmu (Lookout)
Exploits upgraded to focus on extra Android gadgets
To root Android gadgets it infects, AbstractEmu has a number of instruments at its disposal within the type of exploits focusing on a number of vulnerabilities, together with CVE-2020-0041, a bug by no means exploited within the wild by Android apps earlier than this.
The malware additionally makes use of a CVE-2020-0069 exploit to abuse a vulnerability present in MediaTek chips utilized by dozens of smartphone producers which have collectively bought tens of millions of gadgets.
The menace actors behind AbstractEmu even have sufficient abilities and tech know-how so as to add help for extra targets to publicly out there code for CVE-2019-2215 and CVE-2020-0041 exploits.
“It is a important discovery as a result of widely-distributed malware with root capabilities have turn into uncommon over the previous 5 years,” the Lookout researchers mentioned.
“By utilizing the rooting course of to achieve privileged entry to the Android working system, the menace actor can silently grant themselves harmful permissions or set up extra malware — steps that may usually require person interplay.”
AbstractEmu will look forward to instructions from its C2 server, which might instruct it to reap and exfiltrate information primarily based on how new they’re or match a given sample, root contaminated gadgets, or set up new apps
AbstractEmu C2 instructions (Lookout)
Further actions AbstractEmu can carry out after rooting an contaminated gadget vary from monitoring notifications, capturing screenshots, and recording the display screen to locking the gadget and even resetting the gadget password.
“Elevated privileges additionally give the malware entry to different apps’ delicate information, one thing not doable below regular circumstances,” the researchers added.
Indicator of compromise and extra technical info, together with anti-emulation and gadget inspection strategies, may be present in the Lookout report.
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