McAfee Warns Of Rising Mobile Malware Attacks Tied To Vaccines, Banking

The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines sparked a new wave of malware attacks tied to vaccination updates and mobile banking, according to the Mobile Threat 2021 report published by McAfee Corp. MCFE.

What Happened: McAfee said more than 90% of all pandemic-related malware took the form of Trojans. SMS and WhatsApp messages sent by digital miscreants tricked users into downloading a vaccine app — but once it was downloaded, the malware sent itself to everyone in the user’s contact list via SMS or WhatsApp.

One of the earliest vaccine fraud campaigns occurred in India last November, before any vaccines had been approved in the country. McAfee stated the malware behind this campaign can be traced to the same family that was involved in India’s ban on the TikTok app last July.

McAfee also cited a fake vaccine malware campaign that first appeared in Chile in mid-February.

This malicious app used the official icon of the Chilean Ministry of Health and appeared two months after the government started to vaccinate the Chilean population. After the fake vaccination app gained access to a mobile device, it was able to seize control access the user’s data while downloading additional malware components.

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What Else Happened: McAfee also warned of hackers using Trojans to disrupt the mobile banking needs of customers at hundreds of financial institutions around the world – between the third and fourth quarters of 2020, McAfee Mobile Security detected a 141% increase in Trojan activity tied to banking.

Among the most notable malware attacks involving banking included the Brazilian Remote Access Tool Android (BRATA), which somehow got onto the Google Play store and tricked thousands of users into downloads.

Five different apps based on this malware have been identified since it was first detected last September, and variants have since turned up in the U.S. and Spain.

The report warned the situation is showing no signs of abating, noting that “2021 is shaping up to be a year of malware misinformation and sneak attacks.” The report added that while many of the previous year’s “vulnerabilities have been closed or tightened, these bad actors continue to experiment with new lures and techniques to bypass security screening.”

Photo: illustration by Michael Geiger via Pixabay.