Coronavirus continues to spread around the world and day after day new cases are reported, while the world is busy tackling the outbreak and looking means to contain the virus, some group of criminals disguised as hackers are using the medium to exploit unsuspecting Android users by developing a malicious Covid-19 tracking app.
The Covid-19 tracking app promises to help users track coronavirus cases nearby and globally, but turns out to be a malicious app that locks users out of there devices and demands for ransom.
The app promises to provide you with a solution that scans and monitors your surroundings for COVID-19 cases. To fully activate it, the app asks you for some highly unusual permission. It wants to “Activate lock screen to get an instant alert when a coronavirus patient is near your” and “enable the app in Accessibility for active stats monitoring”
Once you grant it those permissions, it will alter your smartphone lock screen password and then, it asks you for a $100 bitcoin ransom to get access to your phone again.
But if your smartphone is running the latest update from Android 7 nougat and above, you may likely not be affected by this malware has google added some security measures to control such attacks. If you also don’t use a screen lock either passcode or pattern, the malware may still attack you.
To be protected from malware attacks, be mindful of the third party sources you download your applications from and always make sure you update your device.
Just like we earlier stated in this article that if your smartphone doesn’t receive an update at all, then you are at risk of malware.
You can read more about the malicious site distributing the app from the source link below