![]() ![]() Joker apps have been seen trying to hide strings from analysis engines via several different methods – including standard and custom encryption. “Many of these samples appear to be designed specifically to attempt to slip into the Play Store undetected and are not seen elsewhere.” “As the Play Store has introduced new policies and Google Play Protect has scaled defenses, Bread apps were forced to continually iterate to search for gaps,” wrote Alec Guertin and Vadim Kotov of the Android Security & Privacy Team, in a recent post. While these types of fraud are not exclusive to Joker, the malware’s obfuscation efforts are what sets it apart, according to Google researchers. Malware authors use injected clicks, custom HTML parsers and SMS receivers to automate the fraud process without requiring any interaction from the user. The latter, where a user’s mobile account is used to pay for something (the charges show up on a subscriber’s cell phone bill), has become more prevalent for Joker, according to Google. It advertises itself as a legitimate app, but once installed, carries out either SMS fraud (sending text messages to premium-rate numbers) or WAP billing fraud. Joker is a billing fraud family of malware that emerged in 2017 but started appearing in earnest in 2019. ![]() Google said that it detects and removes most of them before downloads occur. The internet giant said that having three or more active variants of Joker in circulation at the same time using different approaches or targeting different carriers is the norm and at peak times of activity, up to 23 different apps from the Joker family have been submitted to Play in one day. That variety and trial-and-error approach works well for Joker, given the sheer volume of variants and fake apps that are pitted against Play store defenses. ![]() ![]() Bread) – and in an analysis of the code, said that Joker’s operators have “at some point used just about every cloaking and obfuscation technique under the sun in an attempt to go undetected.” Google has removed 17,000 Android apps to date from the Play store that have been conduits for the Joker malware (a.k.a. ![]()
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