In this fast-paced world, paying heed to each and every piece of data you let your gadgets acquire can become a daunting task. For every “permission” you extend, there is a shadowy appearance of unawareness and lethargy. But what if one of these permissions can actually help somebody in stealing your life savings? Sounds horrifying, right? Well, this has happened to a lot of people and you might fall prey to it as well. In this article, Cybertech will be talking about the infamous five Android apps that can actually get your bank account hacked. So, hold your breath and read.

Banking TROJAN: The new hacking tool

Modern-day smartphones have access to our private information and, in one way or the other, store most of our data, including our banking information, making it vulnerable to online scams. A new scam has recently popped up in the form of a banking trojan, that has been identified by researchers lately. The new trojan can steal users’ login information, account number, and other related financial details, thereby risking one’s hard-earned money. By impersonating an established financial app such as Codice Fiscale 2022 or My Finances Tracker, an attack can be carried out more easily. Having media-accessing Android apps such as Recover Audio, Images & Videos, Zetter Authentication, and File Manager Small, Lite on your phone can also lead to financial fraud. A virus writer makes an exact copy of a bank's app and posts it on unofficial websites. Your login and password are entered into the program when you download them, and the hacker receives them. Your debit card can be used even if fraudsters don’t have the card in physical form. Your card number alone suffices; they don't even require your PIN. Your complete debit card number will appear on your receipt if you have used your debit card for an offline transaction (a transaction without your PIN). So, keeping these Android apps on your phone is a big no-no. But who identified these Android apps? Let’s discuss this in the subsequent section.

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Who identified these Android apps?

So far, five Android apps have been identified and red-flagged by Threat Fabric as top suggestions to be uninstalled from the devices right away. 

”Such a way of distributing Android banking Trojans is very dangerous as victims may stay unsuspecting for a long time and may not alert their bank about suspicious transactions made without their knowledge. Thus, it is very important to take actions on the organization side to detect such malicious Android apps and their payloads as well as suspicious behavior happening on customer’s device,” said the Threat Fabric report. Now, let’s take a look at the five malicious Android apps that we suggest you uninstall without a second thought.

The Infamous Five: Android apps that you should uninstall straightaway.

These 5 Android apps are very risky. According to a tech report, the following Android apps have been identified to be infected with banking TROJAN:

• File Manager Small, Lite

• My Finances Tracker

• Zetter Authentication

• Codice Fiscale 2022

• Recover Audio, Images & Videos 

While the first two Android apps have around 1,000 downloads on the Google Play Store, the remaining three have more than 100,000 downloads each, which is pretty alarming, to say the least. It’s advisable that if you are using these Android apps, you should uninstall them right away.

So far, countries like the US, UK, Australia, Austria, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Spain have seen the circulation of this banking TROJAN and there are chances more than likely that the trojan could spread even more. So, it’s advisable to not download these Android apps and if already downloaded, uninstalling them and finding a suitable replacement app could be the best solution.

What do tech giants have to say about this?

Google has yet again removed 10 applications from its Play Store. The company claims that these Android apps brought financial Trojans to Android devices. These applications were making users unsafe who also had banking applications installed on their smartphones. This came after Check Point Research (CPR) pointed out in a blog post that these Android applications appear to have been submitted by the same threat actor who created new developer accounts for each app.

How to deal with financial fraud?

Now, what if you have become a victim of financial fraud on any one of these Android apps? What if you have just discovered that these Android apps are a gigantic hoax? Well, no need to feel embarrassed. You can simply report online financial fraud in India on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. Here’s the link: https://cybercrime.gov.in/Webform/crmcondi.aspx.

It is advised not to install any random app. First look for how genuine the app is. Just be aware and stay vigilant.