Rome, 1 September 2021 – Joker is back. Not the famous criminal who makes Gotham City shake with his now iconic sadistic laugh. But a trojan virus that hides in android devices, more precisely in the apps found on Google Play Store and causes great damage to users: it subscribes them without their knowledge to paid services capable of running out of credit e empty bank accounts. A real problem that in four years of diffusion has caused the forced removal about 1,700 app. And which has now been detected again by the Belgian police.
We see how does it work and what are the most affected applications.
Apps hit by Joker
There are many users who search the web forapp list affected by the virus. The favorite targets of ‘joker’ are messaging and document scanning applications. In particular, in this new wave of diffusion, the following were reported: Auxiliary Message, Element Scanner, Fast Magic SMS, Free CamScanner, Go Messages, Super Message, Super SMS, Travel Wallpapers. These should no longer be downloadable, but those who already have them on their device are required to uninstall them as soon as possible.
How does it work
‘Joker’ has evolved with the devices themselves. And since most operators allow you to pay for additional services through credit and even directly through the Bank account the virus has grown stronger. In fact, the trojan uses the spread method called ‘dropper‘that is hidden in apps, even those defined as safe by the Play Protect di Google, and introduces the malicious code. If users using the ‘infected’ application give permission to the dropper part of theattack by malware.