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Porn-themed Android Ransomware Takes Your Picture Before Asking For Money
An anonymous reader writes with a link to The Stack's report that researchers at security firm zScaler have spotted a clever new variety of Android-based ransomware, which takes advantage of phones' built-in cameras to add a personal touch; it activates the camera to take a snapshot of the user, which is then incorporated into its blackmail note. "The crudely-planned app features an extraordinarily demanding privacy/functionality swap at install, and proceeds to demand a $500 'FBI fine' via PayPal, rather than any of the cryptocurrencies which most ransomware authors currently favour."
They'd send me money and tell me to go see a plastic surgeon.
I'm not sure I get this. Who's walking around with a phone that they're not prepared to wipe at a moment's notice anyway?
Unless, you have some unusual moles or tattoos down there.
That way, when the ransomeware comes in you can say "That little thing isn't my junk!"
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
It includes so many clever hacks and malware, it's really interesting to watch from the bleachers what goes on on this swiss-cheese platform.
You sure this is android?
Take a photo of everyone for consuming porn. Declare everyone a pervert for being sexual.
When we accept openly that everyone likes sex, we get rid of the stigma, and disarm those who would use our nature against us.
A Paypal account? Paypal locks your account if you so much as blink too fast or too slow. They're never going to see the money. Plus, what is their plan for getting the money out? Having Paypal mail them a check?
I read the internet for the articles.
It's probably just a matter of time, perhaps not much time, before some entrepreneurs figure out that is a generally-useful marketing tactic. We can expect that the little "selfie" cameras on phones and tablets are being turned on briefly by assorted ads delivered along with the web page you looked at, and sent back to the mother ship for later use. You won't have to go through the bother of signing in or otherwise identifying yourself, since your ISP/cell company can supply them with that info (for a price). They can then use the photo and your info to persuade you that you should buy some of their products. Or they can just fake the session in which you ordered what they want to sell you.
I generally keep a bit of opaque tape over those cameras except when I actually want to use them.
Lessee, I took the tape off this laptop's camera; let's see if the slashcode knows how to send y'all my photo. It's a Macbook Pro, which should tell you which exploit to use. I'm currently sitting on the patio, in the shade of a grape vine, waiting for the temperature to reach a new historic high here in the Boston area. If you can find my photo, tell me the text on my t-shirt. If anyone succeeds, it'll show that this story isn't just someone's imagination. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
i was clearly sneezing
Why would I care if they had my picture, what exactly does that prove or how does it harm me?
Personally, ransomware authors should be hunted down and shot, but I think having my picture and claiming that it came from some porn app is a pretty weak threat.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Working a a sysadmin means ive been saddled with a corporate phone account for about 200 road warriors and marketing drones. Ive had people come to me asking to reset their phones for vague or meaningless reasons, only to find this crap installed. Aside from the utterly purile grasp the authors present of the various branches of US justice/law enforcement, the cameraphone picture is usually worth a quick chuckle. I keep a folder of mugshots as a trophy for removing this garbage app.
a quick call to the android SDK adb command is much faster than mashing volume buttons to get into the boot loader.
Good people go to bed earlier.
problem solved.
Why doesn't it instead show you porn (as advertised) send the details of what you like and looked at to a remote server, along with the pic of you it snapped and your name, plus, say, the top 10 email contacts you have.
Then it can pop up a message saying xyz website will be emailing your porn preferences and your pic, plus how often you look at it and maybe even some of the pix to those email contacts. A lot of guys have wives that would pass out if they found out their guy looked at porn, not to mention bosses that would probably fire them. Being that it's external (and you can go and check it yourself), no way to just format the phone and start fresh. Pay up or get screwed.
Well, luckily I'm a good guy. :)
Perhaps it's time to have hardware covers on phone cams and perhaps a red "open" light and notice beep. Whether they are manual or auto-open is an issue to consider.
Table-ized A.I.
My ransomware app just randomly posts a message "I know what you've been doing!" with a mention of my paypal account.
You have to deliberately grant an app access to the camera at install time. It's nice to have fine-grained access controls. For example, Evernote wants access to my microphone but since that's a future I never use, it gets denied.
Yeah, sure, the porn movie wanted to use my phone book, camera, text message system, install programs, modify programs, kill my firstborn and hotwire my car. But ... but PORN!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The photo thing here is an interesting twist here.
But this attack vector seems to require the end-user to authorize things a number of times along the way. As stated in the article the real problem/danger is folk willy-nilly installing apps from heaven knows who.
I wonder if/when these things will simply never unlock the device. Just keep asking for more money. Or unlock it lock it again for no reason randomly in the future.
We seem to have reached a strange point with communications technology. We're barraged by blatant fraud from all sides. Nuisance and scam calls on the phones. Nonsense via SMS. Tons of spam to the email. Junk-mail and endless scams via snail-mail. Now fraudulent "we're the FEDS/IRS" via these goofy apps or websites.
We're being trained to trust nothing.
From the featuerd article: "To avoid being victim of such ransomware, it is always best to download apps only from trusted app stores, such as Google Play. This can be enforced by unchecking the option of "Unknown Sources" under the "Security" settings of your device."
How does the plural work in "trusted app stores"? Since when has Android allowed the user to specify which other repositories are worthy of trust? I thought "Unknown sources" was just a binary choice between Google only and everything, as opposed to the ability to create a middle ground of trusting Google, Amazon, F-Droid, and no other sources.
Read about this app last night, and this morning I encountered an ad trying to play off of this scheme... I just closed the tab and moved on - but the fact that porn ads are starting to copy this concept is kind of scary - people may pay out of fear when they could have just closed the tab (like I did).
fun 7o be again. fate. Let's not be is the ultimate
Who thinks they they need a special app to view porn videos? VLC, or the built-in video player will work just fine.
"The crudely-planned app features an extraordinarily demanding privacy/functionality swap at install, and proceeds to demand a $500 'FBI fine' via PayPal, rather than any of the cryptocurrencies which most ransomware authors currently favour."
If only more people were in the habit of reading EULAs before using an app, this kind of thing wouldn't be so prevalent.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Where can I download this app?
How do they get a picture of you and what you are looking at together? If it is a mash up, couldn't they just mash up your face (pic they took) with some disgusting porn pic anyway?
I don't get it.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Is it clever or crudely planned? The article suggests it's both.
The most interesting thing in the summary is that they're using PayPal over Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies). Is this because they're clueless noobs who can't be bothered to figure out how to use Bitcoin? Is it because PayPal is so terrible at stopping accounts engaged in this kind of abuse that they can still make a shitload of money before they're blocked? Is it because they've found Bitcoin is not useful or flexible enough?! So many questions!
Installing an app asking for every permission under the sun / admin rights to watch porn is a terrible idea. I wouldn't be surprised if the app itself came from a dodgy warez site. Though I've also seen sites where a dodgy banner ad immediately starts pushing an apk - literally visit the site from a phone and next thing you know an apk is downloading. It's a terrible security flaw in browsers that they don't stop this.