Experts sound the alarm, the banking virus is gaining strength in the Czech Republic

At the same time, Cerberus is not a new threat, this Trojan horse dominated the statistics of the most widespread threats for the Android platform already in 2022. And that too in the Czech Republic.

But then the ground collapsed after it, in recent years it did not even make it into the top ten viruses that spread most often. The breakthrough came only in February of this year, when security experts also became smarter. It turned out that the attackers have once again dusted off the forgotten threat and are using it to attack domestic users.

A dangerous virus is terrorizing Android more and more often. He is behind every sixth attack

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According to the analysis of the antivirus company Eset, Cerberus accounted for 3.43% of the intercepted attacks in February and was ranked eighth. In the past month, however, it practically doubled to 6.90%, after which it became the third most widespread threat. So it is evident that this uninvited visitor is gaining strength.

The Cerberus banking malware is a malicious code that is publicly available on the black market, making it much easier to spread. Currently, it is most often spread through fake apps. In recent weeks, it most often pretended to be pirated copies of the MX Player or Ultimate USB applications.

Once the attacker has this information, he can log in to banking, send himself any amount and confirm the payment himself

The uninvited visitor has several dangerous functions that serve to rob the victim. One of the modules can read credentials from legitimate bank websites and send them to attackers. Additional features are used to read SMS codes and bypass two-step verification, including Google Authenticator.

“Once the attacker has this information, he can log into banking, send himself any amount and confirm the payment himself. It is desirable for attackers not to be detected. We therefore encounter the fact that attackers send each other sums of several hundred kroner, which do not attract such attention. Attackers can program the sending of money so that it works automatically without manual input,” Martin Jirkal, head of the analytical team at the Prague branch of Eset, described the common practice.

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At the same time, he advised that people can protect themselves from the Cerberus Trojan horse by verifying all operations in the banking application using fingerprints or a facial image. Cerberus seems to be short on this security.

“Biometric authentication methods such as a fingerprint or facial image, using official banking applications and installing a security application on a smartphone are a reliable guarantee that our login and payment data will remain safe,” the security expert stated.

According to him, people should also be careful about installing applications from unknown sources – because through them, uninvited visitors get into the device. Likewise, it should be a matter of course to have an antivirus system installed on your mobile phone.

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