Identified only as "Lu", a 70-year-old pensioner residing in Singapore told the Shin Min Daily News that malware originating from a fake google play app made it possible to withdraw about US$71,000 from his bank account.
Lu says that the embezzled money consisted of savings and the amount of a pension he received. “The transferred money included my pension that I just received in January, which was about $30,000,” he laments.
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In addition to the US$ 30,000 pension, the retiree also accumulated US$ 41,000 in savings from many years. According to Lu's bank, the money was transferred to an overseas account in the middle of the night.
Upon being informed by the retiree about what happened, the Singapore Police, together with a Security Agency Local cybernetics, issued a statement warning the population about the dangers of downloading applications from dubious sites or the 3rd.
After scanning Lu's cell phone, a fake app that simulated the Google Play app, the Android app store, was responsible for the injury suffered by the retiree.
The fake app carried malware specialized in stealing and sending personal data. Thus, criminals could gain access to Lu's bank passwords, which made it possible to transfer money.
In addition to the damage of approximately R$ 355 thousand (in updated conversion), the criminals still spent US$6,000 on the retiree's credit card, as he himself informed Shin Min. Daily News.
What to do to protect yourself?
Some measures to protect against similar attacks are downloading and installing only apps from official stores, verifying developer information and avoiding clicking on ads embedded in apps or even website links Internet.
The authorities who assisted Lu recommend that users disable the “Install unknown application” or “Unknown sources” option in the security settings of Android devices.
Also, you need to ensure that devices are up to date with antivirus/anti-malware and not grant permission for persistent pop-ups that request access to your computer's hardware or data. device.
Graduated in History and Human Resources Technology. Passionate about writing, today he lives the dream of acting professionally as a Content Writer for the Web, writing articles in different niches and different formats.