Unofficial Telegram app secretly loads malicious sites

[silversurfer]

An unofficial Telegram app is secretly loading malicious sites onto the devices of unsuspecting users and running other malicious services in the background without the users’ consent.
 
Symantec researchers discovered the malicious app, named MobonoGram 2019 (detected as Android.Fakeyouwon) and advertised as an unofficial version of the Telegram messaging application with more features than the official and other unofficial versions, according to a July 15 blog post.
 
The malware was downloaded more than 100,000 times before being removed from Google Play and between January 2019 and May 2019, researchers detected and blocked 1,235 infections related to the Android.Fakeyouwon malware family.
 
The app was available for download even in regions that have banned Telegram, such as Iran and Russia, and the highest number of infections were detected in the U.S., Iran, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

SOURCE: https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security...ackground/