More than 100 members of the Israel Defense Forces, the majority of them stationed around the Gaza strip, fell victim to a cyberespionage attack that used malicious Android applications to steal information from their mobile devices.
More than 100 members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the majority of them stationed around the Gaza strip, fell victim to a cyberespionage attack that used malicious Android applications to steal information from their mobile devices.
The attack campaign started in July and continues to date, according to researchers from antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, who cooperated in the investigation with the IDF Information Security Department.
The Israeli soldiers were lured via Facebook Messenger and other social networks by hackers who posed as attractive women from various countries like Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. The victims were tricked into installing a malicious Android application, which then scanned the phone and downloaded another malicious app that masqueraded as an update for one of the already installed applications.
For example, the Kaspersky researchers have seen a payload named “WhatsApp_Update.
