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Android Ransomware Threatens To Share Your Browsing History With Your Friends (symantec.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The newly discovered Lockdroid ransomware is unique in two ways. First it uses perfectly overlaid popups to trick users into giving it admin privileges. This trick works on devices running Android versions prior to 5.0 (Lollipop), which means 67% of all Android smartphones. Secondly, after it encrypts files and asks for a ransom, it also steals the user's browsing history and contacts list, and blackmails the user to pay the ransom, or his browsing history will be forwarded to his contacts.
Bring it back.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Anything to force vendors to, you know, provide up-to-date software. Unfortunately, this probably won't have much of an effect...
Friends vs contacts? Why put up such a stupidly worded title?
I don't have any friends and my contact list is empty.
"Once the malicious app (a fake porn-viewing app in this case) is installed and run by the user"- exactly. Also, the user would have had to enabled side loading ignoring all of the various warnings.
You still have to accept and side-load an application off of a sketchy site. Will people ever learn?
Kudos to the app author, though. The technique is pretty interesting.
Of course, users can't grant root access to anything, on a stock phone regardless of version. Only rooted phones would be potentially vulnerable, and all others wouldn't show an admin-access dialog at all.
This is on top of requiring the user to actually want to sideload an app called Porn'o'Rama in the first place, if that's what it was really called.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
If you stick with Google Play, you're safe from this.
It is only a problem if you side load apps from untrusted sources.
Since I'm clicking the link in the summary to read 1 single post why would i want a clickbait / ad infested site over whats linked in the summary. symantec's simple post not infested by ads
The overarching themes of the last 25 or so years of personal computing have been:
(1) Remove control from the owner of the device. Give said control to random web sites or the device or OS vendor.
(2) Dumb everything down. Hide what's really happening because "that'd be confusing".
(3) Reward bad behavior. Company locks you out of your own bootloader? Give them billions of dollars! Web site requires you run scripts just to view what could be static content? Reward them with popularity!
We're now reaping the rewards of these directions. Don't be surprised by the clusterfuck that is the smartphone world. This is the natural result of building a world based on ignorance and layers upon layers of obfuscation, designed for the most technically ignorant.
Dear friends and family... I look at porn. So do you. Deal with it.
Blackmail me now, suckah!
Stupid people make stupid choices and get pwned. Details at 11.
Those animals!
Share my browsing history all you want... I'm sure my friends will be shocked to know I visit google, ebay, and my bank. All the fun stuff stays in incognito mode.
Says the Fandroid guy in a Android ransomware story.
Folks are going to find out I surf Slashdot. I don't mind about the kiddie porn, but Slashdot? My reputation will be ruined 4ever.
This is slashdot. Everyone uses NoScript. Symantec.com doesn't work without JS -- it's pure JS.
Softpedia is a spam site but this is slashdot. Slashdot readers already have multiple layers protecting themselves from ad-infested sites. It also works without enabling JS.
Captcha: chrome
Come on. This guy is just a Reeesearcher looking to expose vulnerabilities.
Cut him some slack.
Says the Apple fan-boy acting like Apple has never had a single exploit.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm not going to parade my history out to my friends, but if they see something they don't like me doing and stop being my friends, maybe we're both better off. In any case I wouldn't pay jack or shit to anyone pretending it gives them some leverage over me.
You forgot about other spam sites like CSO, HelpNet or The Stack. Some social media departments need to cut down on the links submitted here.
Seems kind of silly.
Not a lot of people probably do anything embarrassing on their phones. So most people wouldn't care. But if you're going to do such a thing why not just make up fake "bad" sites the user visited and include those in a fake list. But if you're going to use a partially fake list, why not just use a wholly fake list? Or even if you want it to look authentic, if it's known you are including fake data the victim can plausibly just say "Oh, that's fake! I didn't go there!".
So no, I don't visit kinkymidget.com/crossdressers/ball-stomping 16 times a day. Malware is lying.
lol, ad-infested... there are 3 ads on the softpedia page... you need to visit forbes.com once in a while
Google just cant itself anymore
Say the two numbnuts involved in an OS Holy War
If malware forwards me my friend's browsing history, I would totally believe he went to all those sites, because there's no way a malware could possibly lie, or that a compromised machine could have been used as a proxy for some other agent. /s.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'll have you know that I'm a Windows Fanboy, and you can all get off my fully-exploited mom^H^H^Hlawn.
Now it's an unholy war.
I don't have any friends.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
My boss once got a virus that emailed porn links to ask his contacts. When he realised what had happened he sent out an aplology, but said he was surprised at how many responseshe got before that said "thanks", " that's s good one", or returned the favour by sending porn links of their own.
It is a shame that these are the only two serious options in terms of smartphones.
Given how cheap you can get smartphones from China these days, get one of those, and try stuff out on that, rather than your main phone.
John_Chalisque
It really, really matters with search history.
Example: Lot of people probably searched for 'ashley madison' when it was in the news. Now, to a spouse without the context of the time that would look really bad. And that's a tame example. Imagine the search queries you may use to look up a recent horrific crime in the news, you would probably use just keywords and the locale. Without context it would make you look pretty bad.
It is a shame that these are the only two serious options in terms of smartphones.
You think that's a shame? Wait until the election.
Oh, I'm sure all the people that know me would be absolutely terrified when they saw that.....I've spent most of my day surfing Hackaday, esp8266.com, Github, Orange Pi - forums and loading all sorts of specsheets. At least when they saw that I've been browsing Slashdot several times a day they'd permanently block me!
For the people who download and install random shady shit? Seriously, malware only affects idiots. This shit would never get anywhere near my gear.
Bah, the Australian Government has it all on tap, just ask or offer to buy and you can have the entire history of the Australian public.
Big brother is not only alive and well in Australia, he's tapping into our TV camera and microphone.
This is why I'm doubting the new Brave browser's approach of keeping all your browser tracking local instead of being tracked by 3rd parties: your data is in one place on your computer, and subject to hacking attempts like this. I don't want all my tracking data _anywhere_.
MPAA and RIAA officials having a field day on sending out statements to people whom alerted them of their counterfeiting .
Hah. I have no friends.
For the people who download and install random shady shit? Seriously, malware only affects idiots. This shit would never get anywhere near my gear.
Hahahahahaha!
Good one!
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Browsers should never have allowed either one, and they should be blacklisted and removed from the web going forward. They are the primary way average computer users are tricked by scammers.
No reputable website NEEDS to pop-up a window, particularly one that can be decorated to look like a normal desktop window opened by the OS or some other application. Every example of overlays I seem to see recently is tied to some company advertizing or spying on people.... particularly all those facebook transparent overlays polluting non-facebook web pages all over the internet.
Does anybody here know when Mozilla made facebook no longer enforce the "block popups" option? Users used to be able to check that option and then get no popups, but checking the option on recent versions seems to have no effect.
One thing any computer user should ALWAYS be able to depend upon is that any window that pops up on his screen was put there by a local application, NOT by some remote code he does not even know exists, and any application that lets a remote application fake this (web browsers, this means YOU) should be considered malware.
Oh Ghod, this is terribly! Just imagine what would happen to my nerd-creds if it was widely known that I don't watch any porn to speak of, that I sometimes approve of government control, when I feel it makes sense, and I'm not all that keen on having the latest, bleeding edge gadgets?
Unless you are root, there is little you can do.
I've been using and working with computers since before you were born and have never had a single one get infected with a virus or malware of any kind.
It boggles the mind how anyone could have that happen unless they went out of their way to make it happen and/or they are a complete moron.
By that, I mean, what's the difference between asking for money in order to not send your actual browsing history to your friends, or asking for money in order to not send a made up (and far more incriminating) browsing history to friends?
Seems like the writers could have skipped that step and still done just fine.
All I get in Firefox is a black screen with light gray text saying "Symantec Connect Loading Your Community Experience". Checking the error console reveals a JavaScript error that "occurs when $compile attempts to fetch a template from some URL, and the request fails." If Symantec's web site is fragile enough to completely break when a JavaScript file fails to load, why should I trust Symantec with anything?
What is to stop an application from opening a socket to a trojan server, downloading a binary, writing it, chmod 700, then executing it?
Google might not recognize that malware for what it is until far, far too late.
And since the majority of Android devices are vulnerable to towelroot, that binary owns the phone.
A mass install of a popular app with such stealth malware could see thousands upon thousands of phones suddenly compromised, and there is nothing that Google can do.
All I get is a blank screen.
Flogging | tar & feathers
What? Are you admitting to your choice of porn up front?
I've been using and working with computers since before you were born and have never had a single one get infected with a virus or malware of any kind.
It boggles the mind how anyone could have that happen unless they went out of their way to make it happen and/or they are a complete moron.
Impossible.
And since you must know that such a history is imposible, what's your point?
(||) Nehmo (||)
Now, I see ransomware is the answer. Politicians wouldn't want their porn history exposed.
(||) Nehmo (||)
Well we now know that Nehmo is one of those morons with constantly virus infected machines.
I've been using and working with computers since before you were born
Unlikely at best and laughable at worst. I have been programming longer than most people whose names aren't Kernighan or Ritchie.
and have never had a single one get infected with a virus or malware of any kind.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Your one experience means less than nothing. The simple fact is that people continue to be infected by malware of all types on all platforms. This is not a debatable point.
It boggles the mind how anyone could have that happen unless they went out of their way to make it happen and/or they are a complete moron.
Right. Now you're just being stupid.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.