This New Android Malware Might Steal Your Credit Card Information

The latest type of malware, as per Avast and Alberto Segura, that is afflicting Android users is quite dangerous because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up getting your credit card information into the wrong hands. The name of the malware is MasterFred, and it has the potential to cause rather widespread harm if we’re not extremely careful about how we process things in this regard. First spotted in June, this malware uses fake overlays to steal credit card information, and the overlays that it uses mimic those of Twitter, Netflix and Instagram along with a wide range of banking portals and the like as well.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the attackers are using the built in accessibility service in Android to make it so that they can mimic overlays. The way that this works is that you might assume that you are entering your credit card details into a legitimate service that requires this information in order to charge you for whatever it is providing you with, but it will turn out that the form that you submitted was actually fake and your credit card information would subsequently end up in the wrong hands.

One really intriguing thing about this new malware is that it uses HTML overlays as well which help make the overlays seem a lot more realistic with all things having been considered and taken into account. That means that users have to be more careful than ever before. You should vet any form that you are putting credit card information into a number of times before. This malware sends your credit card information straight to the dark web with a Tor2Web proxy that serves as a gateway for the data and secures its transmission.

Photo: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto / Getty Images

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