xenomorph: Here’s how this ‘Alien’ may infect your smartphone – Times of India

If you are a fan of science fiction horror, chances are you’ve seen at least one of the films in the Alien franchise that began with Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). Remember the titular Alien in the film? The Xenomorph, the dreaded beast from outer space, with acid for blood and an armoured hide, the seemingly unkillable ‘perfect’ organism that brought terror to the characters and the audience? Well, that very Alien could give you more cause for concern now, in the form of a banking trojan called simply the Xenomorph.
As per a report by Dutch cybersecurity firm Threat Fabric, the Xenomorph banking trojan is a form of dropper malware that is designed to ‘drop’ a malicious code onto the targeted device. And the method of this trojan’s delivery to any Android smartphone is similar to the way the Alien from the Alien franchise operated. In the films, the Xenomorph hid inside the spaceships and slowly started killing off the crew. In the same way, hackers are using other apps to hide away the Xenomorph banking trojan. Case in point: The Fast Cleaner app on Google Play Store. According to the report, the Xenomorph malware was hiding inside the Fast Cleaner app, an application said to optimise your smartphone by cleaning the junk files, boosting RAM, etc. For now, the Xenomorph banking trojan has been found to target Android users in Europe, says the report.
According to the report, the Xenomorph malware is still new, but it says that it has come across a similar form of dropper malware, known more simply as just Alien in the past.
How the Xenomorph malware attacks your Android smartphone
As per the security researchers, the malware puts up an overlay window to your smartphone screen whenever the users open a targeted app. Unaware of the window, the users then interact with it, which helps the hackers get the data that’s being fed to the overlay screen. With the overlay attack, bad actors can steal your banking information and login credentials. As per Threat Fabric, the target list includes banks in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Belgium. A few crypto wallets and email apps have also been targeted.