We have seen that all kinds of things and tactics have been used by hackers in recent times because they want to get inside the systems and do as much damage as possible. This is because economies around the world have been suffering due to the Coronavirus and this is the best way to gather money from methods such as hacking as well as DDoS and ransomware demands.
Now, we have a report of a new type of hacking attack that has come to light in Canada. This is also worrying because of the fact that this malware hides inside your system as a COVID-19 contact tracing app which means that you are unlikely to remove it thinking of its importance.
According to the research done ESET, this “ransomware emerged only a few days after Health Canada announced the release of COVID Alert, which will first be tested in Ontario before rolling out nationwide”. This means that the hackers targetted the malware to hide as the tracing app right in time for the official launch of the app which does actually provide contact tracing and this will make people not think otherwise given the health emergency and the prevailing situation.
While government’s contact tracing app is currently under testing in Canada, cyberattackers are on the rampage and trying to sell their own malware app “marketed as Canada’s official COVID-19 tracing app, but hiding a malicious secret”.
It is said that “If an Android user downloads the APK from the fraudulent domains and installs the app, the malware requests access to files and begins the task of encrypting content on the device with specific extensions, including .PNG”. ESET also says that “We dismiss the claim that the project has research purposes — no responsible researcher would publicly release a tool that is easy to misuse for malicious purposes,”
