KOCHI: Police on Thursday came out with a warning to smartphone users that there is a possibility of a malware named ‘Agent Smith’ attacking android smartphones. Police issued the warning based on an alert by Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
In an official social media message, Kochi city police said: “the malware is disguised as a Google-related application which exploits known android vulnerabilities and automatically replaces installed apps with malicious versions without user’s knowledge or interaction.
As per Checkpoint Research, the malware is originally downloaded from the widely used third party app-store like “9Apps” (Android app store backed by UCWeb). Most infections occurred on devices running Android 5 and 6 versions.
The malware infects the device through unwanted advertisement, pop-ups like install mobile anti-virus, sex game, enhance selfie camera, etc. This, in turn, collects personal information and banking credentials,” it said.
Police said Google had identified and removed 16 apps from the play store and if anyone has the following apps installed on android phone, it should be uninstalled immediately.