By Wes O’Donnell
Managing Editor, InCyberDefense, In Military and In Space News. Veteran, U.S. Army and Air Force.
The Joker strikes again! No, it’s not in the form of Batman’s archnemesis, but in a clever bit of malware that has infected dozens of Android operating system apps. The malicious code can easily avoid detection unless you pay close attention to your bank and credit card statements.
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How Joker Malware Works
Joker works by silently signing you up for subscription services that you never wanted in the first place. In Denmark, for example, Joker was responsible for signing some people up for subscriptions at 50 Danish kroner per week (or roughly seven euros).
Google has since removed the offending apps from the Google Play store, but not before the apps had been downloaded more than 472,000 times.
Fortunately for many of our readers, a majority of the infected apps target European and Asian countries, including China, Brazil, France, United Arab Emirates, Singapore and the UK. Interestingly, some of the Joker’s code comments are written in Chinese, which might give a hint as to the malware’s origin.
Which Android Apps Are Affected?
If you have a mobile device that use the Android operating system and have any of these apps installed on it, uninstall them now:
- Advocate Wallpaper
- Age Face
- Altar Message
- Antivirus Security – Security Scan
- Beach Camera
- Board picture editing
- Certain Wallpaper
- Climate SMS
- Collate Face Scanner
- Cute Camera
- Dazzle Wallpaper
- Declare Message
- Display Camera
- Great VPN
- Humour Camera
- Ignite Clean
- Leaf Face Scanner
- Mini Camera
- Print Plant scan
- Rapid Face Scanner
- Reward Clean
- Ruddy SMS
- Soby Camera
- Spark Wallpaper
If you find out that you have used any of these apps, review your bank or credit card statements for any unusual activity.
One final warning: Joker uploads your entire phone’s contact list to the bot’s makers, so you may want to inform your contacts that you may have been infected.
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