Specific Targeting
The grand research surfaces the fact that an infamous malware called Xiny, which was first known in 2015 and actively infecting phones since 2016, is now live again. This malware’s named as Android.Xiny.5260, and has infected tens of millions of Android smartphones till date.
Specific TargetingWhat Does It Do?Too Hard To Be Removed
An interesting thing here is, this malware is subjected to only Androids and that too, phones running on versions 5.1 and below only. We may wonder who’ll be using such outdated OS eve today, but Google reports show that over 25% of total active Android phones are version 5.1 and below. That contributes to more than 500 million smartphones in the market.
What Does It Do?
It’s just more like a mediator for paid actors. Xiny, once infected, downloads several unwanted apps onto devices, to let hackers earn hefty commissions from those unwanted apps’ developers for artificially inflating their app users.
Too Hard To Be Removed
Researchers revealed that this trojan malware is so hard to be removed from the infected handset. It’s typical that, this malware is set in a read-only file rather than app format, making it harder to be deleted. Researchers have long tried to wash this app from the infected device, but it’s so strong to reincarnate quickly. Though once deleted somehow, it would revive when the phone’s booted. This malware will be coming with most harmless applications on Playstore and takes over handset to dump malware. A thing to note here is, Xiny is functional only if the user grants root access of the phone only. If not, it’s safe.
