The past week was very busy for America, from worries about North Korea to riots in Charlottesville, Virginia. But hackers were busy too. I say this because they infected the Android/Google store with SonicSpy. SonicSpy on Android: This is a consumer alert.
So why is SonicSpy so dangerous? Because it records your calls and text messages. It can also send calls, send messages, and monitor records at the hackers’ request. In fact, it can perform 73 different tasks; all these tasks have bad intentions. Recently, Android researchers found three versions of this spyware. They are soniac, hulk messenger, and troy chat.
But there is good news. Google removed these bad apps. However, there is bad news. There is fear that people downloaded these apps thousands of times already. For example, they downloaded soniac as many as 5,000 times. What SonicSpy does is hide from the victim. Then it connects to the control server and latches to the Telegram app. It shares the same code with other spyware that hit Android products in the recent past. Eventually, the hackers use the spyware to do just that, spy and get your information. Or they just take control of your phone altogether. Some say this virus originated from Iraq, one of the most turbulent nations in the world today.
Although they remove the spyware, experts warn they could come up with another batch and start again. They’re right. Not only that, they’re getting smarter, more desperate and more determined. There are 14 billion Android users in the world, myself included. Very few become victims to this. Here in our Boston computer service shop, we don’t have any Sonic Spy complaints…yet. And we don’t know who is behind this kind of spyware. We probably will never know. With all that’s going on, do you think they chose the timing because of such distractions?