ESET detects ‘Krysanec’ Trojan, an android killer

Tuesday, 19 August 2014 02:57 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

ESET, a premier antivirus software manufacture recently discovered a new malware called ‘Krysanec,’ a RAT (Remote Access Trojan) malware, which has the ability to communicate with its command server and download various modified application modules to suite its environment to perform and penetrate android mobile devices.

The particular malware fantasises as a cracked version of a famous paid application e.g. a popular game, so the danger of getting infected is worse than installing an application from a non-trustworthy app store. This backdoor Trojan, which ESET detects as android/Spy.Krysanec, was found as a malicious modification of MobileBank (a mobile banking app for Russian Sberbank), 3G Traffic Guard (an app for monitoring data usage) and a few others, including ESET’s own mobile security. When the device becomes infected, the malware performs tasks like taking photos, record audio through the microphone, current GPS location, list of installed applications, list of opened web pages, list of placed calls, contact list, SMS (regular or Whatsapp), etc. Today in the corporate world the use mobile devices have taken an active part in performing financial, business and other activities. The malwares designed to target certain PC systems are now having less effect due to strong anti-virus software’s but the corporate world has now more concern over the mobile devices and their security. A Trojan horse, or Trojan, in computing is generally known as a malware program which contains malicious code that when executed, performs certain tasks determined by the nature of the Trojan, typically causing loss or theft of data or possible system harm. The analysts from ESET stresses that the remote-access-tools for android are less common than their Windows desktop counterparts, to prevent such attacks the mobile users should have a security mechanism which will protect the device. There are plenty of mobile security applications such as ESET mobile security and users should also download applications from trustworthy official sites such as Google Play Store but even in official sites the user must be aware of the permissions requested by the app during the installation progress.