BlackRock Malware | After Joker, here is another dangerous malware you need to worry about

The Joker malware recently made headlines for being one of the most sophisticated malware out there. However, it turns out that a new malware called ‘BlackRock’ can precisely ruin your digital life. Now, the easiest way to get rid of malware is to simply delete shady apps. For BlackRock, things are not that easy. The new BlackRock targets popular apps like Gmail, Netflix, Amazon, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube and others. In fact, there could be as many as 337 apps being the prime target of this malware. So, deleting these apps from smartphones is not an option.

“BlackRock is based on the Xerxes banking Trojan, it is part of the LokiBot descendance which has several variants,” as per ThreatFabric, a firm that helps banks detect cyberattacks, mentioned in a report by PhoneArena.

The only saving grace from BlackRock is that this malware hasn’t made its way to the official Google Play app store. But if you are someone who loves to tinker around APK files and install apps from third-party Android app stores then you need to be careful.

BlackRock can simply be considered as a banking trojan and infects devices by luring users to download updates from unknown sources. “The Trojan’s largest campaigns are posing as fake Google updates,” it said. So, as long as you stick to official app sources, you should be safe. What makes it dangerous is that popular antivirus apps are ineffective in tackling the threats of BlackRock.

“When the malware is first launched on the device, it will start by hiding its icon from the app drawer, making it invisible to the end-user. As a second step it asks the victim for the Accessibility Service privileges,” added the report.

So, what can the BlackRock malware do? “It can perform the infamous overlay attacks, send, spam and steal SMS messages, lock the victim in the launcher activity (HOME screen of the device), steal and hide notifications, deflect usage of Antivirus software on the device and act as a keylogger,” warned ThreatFabric.

Originally published at https://www.gadgetsnow.com on July 20, 2020.