In a highly connected world, there is little concern for cyber security. This time, it’s called the fake SMS app Simo, was recently identified, exposing thousands of people. It transmits users’ messages to a malicious service that creates accounts on various sites such as Instagram, Telegram, and Facebook.
Read more: Google Play: Delete these suspicious apps from your phone immediately
Symo, which is available for Android, is among the most downloaded messaging apps in India with over 100,000 affected users. However, many comments on the Google Play Store indicated that the app was malware.
Electronic security
The discovery that puts Android users at risk was made by researcher Maxime Ingra, from Evina, a cybersecurity company. However, anyway, the existence of malware On the platform already to Google.
In short, the software works to steal user information. When installed, the platform requires the person to enter their phone number while displaying the loading screen. At the same time, the program steals phone information and intercepts messages from short message from the device. The malware then sends the data to an external server.
With the collected information, the application reads the messages to receive the verification code required by various websites and thus manages to create fake accounts.
In turn, underground markets that may belong to cyber criminal organizations buy these fake accounts.
other apps
The same researcher at Evina also found that Symoo shares SMS with the same domain as the virtual number app. Just like the newfound, this one is also available on the Google Play Store.
This virtual number developer is also the creator of the Activation PW app. In short, it offered “online numbers from over 200 countries” to create accounts.
