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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
An Android malware package likened to a Russian matryoshka nesting doll has security researchers raising the alarm, since it appears it's almost impossible to get rid of.
Known as xHelper, the malware has been spreading mainly in Russia, Europe, and Southwest Asia on Android 6 and 7 devices (which while old and out of date, make up around 15 per cent of the current user base) for the past year from unofficial app stores. Once on a gizmo, it opens a backdoor, allowing miscreants to spy on owners, steal their data, and cause mischief.
It has only recently been picked apart by Kaspersky Lab bods, and what makes the malware particularly nasty, the researchers say, is how it operates on multiple layers on the tablets and handsets it infects.
"The main feature of xHelper is entrenchment," explained Igor Golovin on Tuesday. "Once it gets into the phone, it somehow remains there even after the user deletes it and restores the factory settings."
[...] The best thing to do, though, is go a step further than a factory reset, and erase the flash memory completely, including the system partition, and put in a fresh clean copy. "If you have Recovery mode set up on your Android smartphone," said Golovin, "you can try to extract the libc.so file from the original firmware and replace the infected one with it, before removing all malware from the system partition. However, it’s simpler and more reliable to completely reflash the phone."
Even better advice is to avoid downloading any suspicious apps from the Google Play Store, just to be safe, and definitely don't use unauthorized third-party stores at all.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @08:20PM (8 children)
I peer over my walled garden and mock your malware problems.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 08 2020, @09:58PM (1 child)
What if these malware 'problems' were targeted only at these ancient old versions by *cough* someone *cough* who would be interested in you getting a newer phone with a newer version of Android.
Naaaah. That could never happen.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 1) by petecox on Thursday April 09 2020, @02:51AM
Until something better comes along.Sadly Librem 5 is unaffordable vaporware.
(Score: 3, Touché) by SomeGuy on Wednesday April 08 2020, @10:23PM (5 children)
I peer over my computerless POTS desk phone and mock your malware problems - and you.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday April 08 2020, @11:06PM (2 children)
Do you think your plain old desktop telephone cannot be tapped?
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2020, @02:20AM
True, but give him credit. You'd need a soldering iron and a chunk of time to do it.
Those POTS phones can be hacked quiet easily, its just not as easy as remotely pwning a modern mobile phone
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 09 2020, @04:05PM
Wait . . . um, you're saying that some kind of amazing technology has already been developed to tap POTS phones?
OMG!
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @11:06PM (1 child)
Yeah, it's OK. You can go back to sleep again, Gramps.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 09 2020, @04:06PM
Not for long. Those old POTS phones have loud and annoying ringers. Actual physical bells.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.