{"id":38999,"date":"2023-10-20T15:00:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/more-than-1-million-phones-infected-in-google-cyber-attack-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:00:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:00:11","slug":"more-than-1-million-phones-infected-in-google-cyber-attack-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/more-than-1-million-phones-infected-in-google-cyber-attack-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 1 million phones infected in Google cyber attack – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hacker\"<\/div>\n

One of the largest breaches ever of Google accounts was uncovered on Wednesday, with cyber criminals reportedly infecting more than one million Android phones worldwide, stealing credentials and installing malicious software.<\/p>\n

Uncovered by security software company Check Point<\/a>, the attack is dubbed \u201cGooligan\u201d and continues to infect over 13,000 phones every day.<\/p>\n

The company believes the breach to be the largest Google account breach to date.<\/p>\n

Read more: What you need to know about Australia\u2019s three most common cyber threats<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The malware comes from third-party applications installed outside of Google\u2019s Play Store, and only affects phones running on version four and version five of the Android operating system.<\/p>\n

The current version of Android is version seven, but due to many manufacturers\u2019 sluggish update schedules, about 74% of Android users<\/a> are still operating on those older versions.<\/p>\n

Once installed, the malware uses an exploit only found in older Android versions, allowing the malicious applications to grant full access to all the phone\u2019s functions, commonly known as \u201croot access\u201d.<\/p>\n

Once root access is granted, the malware\u00a0can then access all functions of the user\u2019s Google accounts, including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Photos, and Google Drive.<\/p>\n

Check Point notes that \u201chundreds\u201d of the compromised accounts are associated with enterprise accounts.<\/p>\n

Alongside gaining this access, the malicious software downloads apps and fraudulently reviews them, gaining revenue from ad services that pay for app reviews.<\/p>\n

The device is also infected with \u201cadware\u201d, which displays unwanted advertising to the user, again generating revenue.<\/p>\n

Check Point alerted Google to the issue, which responded by removing fraudulently reviewed apps from the Google Play Store, and protecting Google accounts that were compromised.<\/p>\n

It is believed that Gooligan is a form of Ghost Push malware\u2014malicious software that Google has been working to eradicate for over two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re appreciative of both Check Point\u2019s research and their partnership as we\u2019ve worked together to understand these issues,\u201d said Adrian Ludwig, Google\u2019s director of Android security in a statement to Check Point.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of our ongoing efforts to protect users from the Ghost Push family of malware, we\u2019ve taken numerous steps to protect our users and improve the security of the Android ecosystem overall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check Point detected 57% of breaches to have occurred in the Asia region, with 19% occurring in the US.<\/p>\n

Users can check if their Google account is compromised by using Check Point\u2019s tool here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Review your cyber security<\/h3>\n

Android users are advised to steer clear of apps that are not available in the Google Play Store, and to be wary of suspicious looking links.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s another reminder to SMEs to be vigilant when it comes to cyber security, even for things as simple as updating old and outdated passwords.<\/p>\n

In June this year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> had his Twitter account compromised, and it was revealed that his password was \u201cdadada\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the time, cyber security expert Michael McKinnon told SmartCompany<\/em> passwords should be at minimum 12 characters in length, have uppercase and lowercase letters, and include at least one digit and symbol.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can stick to these rules, you\u2019re virtually uncrackable,\u201d McKinnon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally you want a 50-character string of random numbers and letters, but we\u2019re all human and remembering that would be hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on SmartCompany<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the largest breaches ever of Google accounts was uncovered on Wednesday, with cyber criminals reportedly infecting more than<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}