Latest Android Mazar Bot Steals Personal Data and Eats Up Phone’s Contents

Rafia Shaikh

Were you wondering why there hasn't been a major news report focusing on yet another Android malware? Well, we won't disappoint you as the latest malware is going to make your day - or not.

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Android malware eats your phone's storage:

A new Android malware that has been going around lately has gained quite a popularity thanks to the things it can do. What things? Gaining root access of your device and completely erasing your phone's data! Discovered by a Danish security company, this serious malware has been dubbed as Mazar Bot. The research firm reports that the Android malware was being spread using text messages and "could have been sent to over 100,000 phones in Denmark." There are still no reports about what other countries may have this Android malware doing rounds too.

While a majority of malware focuses on distributing itself from third-party app stores, Mazar spreads via SMS or MMS messages. When a user clicks on the link shared in the text message, it leads them to downloading a malicious APK file. This new app has the name MMS Messaging, giving many users no suspicions about the  malware. Once the user downloads the app giving it admin level privileges, it can do all kinds of things thanks to this access. The first thing that it does is apparently downloading a legitimate TOR Android app, without user consent. Using the anonymity tool, it then downloads the malware, sends a message to a phone number (appears to be Iranian), sharing device's location.

From sending SMS messages to making calls to your contacts, infecting browsers, changing settings, the malware can also wipe the device's storage completely. In short, all wrath is unleashed once you fall into the trap of downloading this app. Moreover, the Android malware Mazar also installs another Android app Polipo Proxy using it to spy "on victim's Web traffic and carry out Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks."

Interesting bit...

How to be safe? The malware apparently doesn't download on the smartphones where the language is set to Russian. That doesn't mean you have to learn Russian to stay secure from this obviously dangerous malware as there's a simpler solution. Never use third-party app stores. The malware while spreads via text messages, manages to download the app through external sources. You can turn off Allow installation of apps from sources other than the Play Store from Settings. As we always say, never ever click on unsolicited links shared via emails, text messages, Whatsapp, or any other medium and stick to the Google's Play Store.

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