31772a6dd13fa30012a6de614c7ac0fc9734955e5797a33812 Money And Knowledge: Beware this android malware that erases your phone with a single text

Beware this android malware that erases your phone with a single text



It's been a bad week for people's phones, and it's not getting any better: A Danish security firm's found malware that ravages your Android phone with a single text-erasing data or sending rogue calls and texts. 

Denmark-based security firm Heimdal detected the malware, called "Mazar," which sends text messages that include an ostensibly harmless multimedia message link to users. Click through, and it downloads Tor to your phone, and then the actual malware, whose source the Tor software hides. (By the way, a little reminder for living in the twenty-first century, friends: Don't click on text message links from random senders.) 
Heimdal thinks that over 100,000 phones have received the Mazar text in Denmark, the BBC reports, and the firm isn't yet sure if it's spread to other countries. 
We've heard of such one-text menaces targeting Android before. Last year, a University of Cambridge study found that 85 percent of Android devices could face at least one crucial security vulnerability. This report is just the latest confidence crusher threatening the operating system's security. 
Weirdly, the new malware can't infiltrate devices using Russian as their default language. Setting your phone to a foreign language seems like an extreme measure when common sense should keep you safe.
(source:techgig)