Cron

By GoldSparrow in Malware

The Russian-based Cron hacking group has developed a threat that carries the same name – the Cron Android banking Trojan. Its purpose is to defraud users and collect money. The Cron hacking group has been very successful in propagating this banking Trojan as malware researchers have estimated that this threat appears to have compromised over 1,000,000 Android devices globally. The Russian law-enforcement authorities have acted swiftly and taken down the Cron hacking group so that it is likely that the propagation of this nasty threat will soon stop. However, do not be too quick to celebrate as the Cron banking Trojan gained some popularity, and it is likely that other shady individuals may have gotten their hands on this Trojan.

Propagation Methods

Cybersecurity experts believe that the operators of the Cron Banking Trojan have generated $800,000 approximately. It appears that the Cron Trojan would collect about $100 from each victim. The creators of the Cron Banking Trojan have used two methods to propagate this threat. They used phishing emails and text messages, which had an attached ‘.APK’ file which would carry the payload of the threat. Another method employed in the spreading of the Cron Trojan is bogus variants of popular applications such as Pornhub, Avito, Framaroot and Navitel. It is likely that these fake copies were hosted on unsecured application stores online.

Capabilities

Once it infects a device, the Cron Banking Trojan will take over the SMS features of the host. The Cron Trojan can read the text messages of the victim, as well as send text messages from their device. This allows the attackers to send money to their own bank accounts. The authors of the Cron Trojan appear to have set up over 6,000 separate bank accounts, probably hoping that this will make it impossible for the authorities to catch them, which, as we know, was not the case.

Most of the activity of the Cron Banking Trojan was in Russia, but if another individual has taken over the project, we may see it emerge in other countries too. Be very careful what applications you allow on your device. Avoid software from unknow sources at all costs.

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