Beware This Android Malware That Erases Your Phone With A Single Text

Beware This Android Malware That Erases Your Phone With A Single Text

It’s been a bad week for people’s phones, and it’s not getting any better: A Danish security firm’s found malware that ravages your Android phone with a single text — erasing data or sending rogue calls and texts.

Denmark-based security firm Heimdal detected the malware, called “Mazar”, which sends text messages that include an ostensibly harmless multimedia message link to users. Click through, and it downloads Tor to your phone, and then the actual malware, whose source the Tor software hides. (By the way, a little reminder for living in the twenty-first century, friends: Don’t click on text message links from random senders.)

Heimdal thinks that over 100,000 phones have received the Mazar text in Denmark, the BBC reports, and the firm isn’t yet sure if it’s spread to other countries.

We’ve heard of such one-text menaces targeting Android before. Last year, a University of Cambridge study found that 85 per cent of Android devices could face at least one crucial security vulnerability. This report is just the latest confidence crusher threatening the operating system’s security.

Weirdly, the new malware can’t infiltrate devices using Russian as their default language. Though setting your phone to a foreign language seems like an extreme measure when common sense should keep you safe.

[BBC]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.