An iPhone owner? You better read this.

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Security researchers from mobile industry have found more than a dozen iPhone apps that are connected with Golduck. It is a dangerous malware that infects people’s retro games apps.

Apple’s software is usually well-known for its safety. It’s a closed environment, what means that every app that you can download from the Appstore is thoroughly checked by their engineers. Moreover, if you want to download something that the system doesn’t recognise, you will need to give it special permission. This precaution increases the safety of the users, that aren’t that familiar with either tech or internet.

Well so what’s the problem? Why should we worry?

The thing is that, the malware is getting into your device, because the app that you may have used is connected to servers that contain the virus. That basically means, that while you are using it, your phone gets infected. Now, that allows the hacker to do multiple things, one of them would be to f.x. send premium messages. Those micro-transactions can really add up, and in the end cost you a lot of money. The malware has been known in the market for over a year now, but firstly it has been noticed on Google Play Store. It turned out, because of the research of Appthority that over 10 million user’s devices has been infected.

Here’s the list of the applications, that have been found during the research. If you had downloaded them, please delete it as fast as possible:

  1. Commando Metal: Classic Contra
  2. Super Pentron Adventure: Super Hard
  3. Classic Tank vs Super Bomber
  4. Super Adventure of Maritron
  5. Roy Adventure Troll Game
  6. Trap Dungeons : Super Adventure
  7. Bounce Classic Legend
  8. Block game
  9. Classic Bomber: Super Legend
  10. Brain It On: Stickman Physics
  11. Bomber Game : Classic Bomberman
  12. Classic Brick – Retro Block
  13. The Climber Brick
  14. Chicken Shoot Galaxy Invaders

So how does it actually work?

When you use a free application on your smartphone it most of the time has a lot of ads, so that the creator can earn some revenue from it, instead of making the app itself pay-to-use. What the researchers noticed is the fact that the games mentioned above display icons, which when clicked connect your device with Golduck command and control server. It doesn’t sound that harmful, but it really can cause some serious damage to your wallet.

“The apps themselves are technically not compromised; while they do not contain any malicious code, the backdoor they open presents a risk for exposure that our customers do not want to take.

“A hacker could easily use the secondary advertisement space to display a link that redirects the user and dupes them into installing a provisioning profile or a new certificate that ultimately allows for a more malicious app to be installed,” said the research team from Wandera – a company that focuses on mobile security.

It was estimated by Sensor Tower, that these apps were installed over a million times since their release. That’s a really scary number in my opinion. Let’s say, that each user had unintentionally sent a premium message just with a worth of 10$, that’s already 10 million dollars stolen from innocent people.

Although, you have to keep in mind with all of this knowledge, that every app can be ‘compromised’ this way. That’s a good point to keep going forward with our lives, because on average a smartphone user has 90 apps on their mobile device. The funny fact is that you use only 10% of them daily and 30% during the whole month. Our phones are trashed with all kinds of software that can potentially harm us. No matter whether you use Android or iOS, there’s always a way to get through the security systems and you should always be careful, when using internet.

Reference list:

  1. Whittaker, Z. (2019-01-05). Security researchers find over a dozen iPhone apps linked to Golduck malware. https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/05/dozen-iphone-apps-linked-to-golduck-malware/
  2. Perez, S. (2017).Report: Smartphone owners are using 9 apps per day, 30 per month
    https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/04/report-smartphone-owners-are-using-9-apps-per-day-30-per-month/
  3. Apple. (null).null. https://www.apple.com/shop/accessories/all-accessories
  4. Complex(null).null. https://static.complex.com/region.html

3 thoughts on “An iPhone owner? You better read this.

  1. Cendrowicz Kamil says:

    What do you think should happen to people responsible for this apps? As you said, they do not contain malicious code, they just open a backdoor for undesired software. Should we take legal action towards the creators? Should we demand our stolen money back? Most exactly – who is to blame? As you said, they got into closed environment. That means their safety should be tested thoroughly. Well, apparently they didn’t.

  2. Garścia Janusz says:

    The game in the screenshot is Terraria which isn’t mentioned in the list. Was it also infected? Other than that interesting article. Makes me wonder how many of the “secure platforms” aren’t actually secure, especially when it comes to iPhone’s app market which is said to have every app examined. 🙂

  3. Tautkevychius Yana says:

    The issue is quite debatable nowadays. The vast majority came face to face with the problem with viruses on the computer, telephone, table, etc. The list with the dangerous games highlight my attention.I assume that the list is not full and there are a lot of other games that are infected. How can I figure out that, just google every time when I want to download something ? Sounds not sufficient.

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