A new malware has been uncovered recently and has been dubbed as PhoneSpy. The malicious software was found hiding in some legitimate apps such as Google TV and was found spying on the device operations conducted by users.
It is a kind of espionage related software that has been exclusively found targeting South Korean Residents. And reports are in that the developers of such malware could be those funded by North Korea government found always spying on populace of various countries across the world.
PhoneSpy is found passing on data from the targeted device to remote servers and the information that is being passed includes messages, login data, location info and images.
What’s interesting about the newly found spyware on the mobile devices of South Koreans is the fact that it has the potential to uninstall any app from the victimized phone and can stay anonymous from anti-malware software in relation to its operations.
Security researchers from mobile security firm Zimperium stated that PhoneSpy was discovered on over 23 applications and was found updated with the feature of taking pictures and recording audio in real time, from the targeted device without the knowledge of the victim.
Related authorities from South Korea have been informed about the attack that has so far targeted over 1000 victims to date.
Note- According to a Google Transparency Report released in Jan’2021, over 800 websites were found to be distributing malware on a weekly basis. A number pretty less than that compared to last year where over 3000+ web portals were found to be distributing malware and over 7k websites found to be spreading malware in 2018.
