New Android Trojan Fakes Device Shut Down, Spies On Users

An anonymous reader writes A new Android Trojan that tricks users into believing they have shut their device down while it continues working, and is able to silently make calls, send messages, take photos and perform many other tasks, has been discovered and analyzed by AVG researchers. They dubbed it, and AVG's security solutions detect it as PowerOffHijack.

Comments

Re:WTF?

[AmiMoJo]

There is nothing to see here. The malware doesn't get root. It's just a normal app that simulates shutdown, like those lame joke apps we used to write back in the day that mimic the DOS format command output or Netware login screen. The user has to be simultaneously knowledgeable enough to enable app installation from sources other than Play and extremely dumb to install an app requiring so many permissions and from a dubious source.

The malware doesn't do anything a normal app can't. No exploits, it just makes the screen completely black and starts sending text messages (which the user gave it permission to do), while hoping you don't press the home key and discover the ruse.