A Story of a Third Eye 👁
Hi, Ajak Amico’s welcome back to another blog. This blog is about ‘My First real-time case of Installing Third-party Apps on Your Phone,’ so I will share a real incident that happened a year ago to my friend when he installed a third-party app on his phone, which had a backdoor. Finally, I’ll explain how we identified it and recovered it. So, before wasting any time, mark me! You don’t need to be a cyber investigator to solve these problems, but basic precautions can definitely save you from big threats and scams.”Before starting, if you haven’t subscribed to our channel, do subscribe, guys. Contents related to cyber security, Bug Bounty, and Digital Forensics Investigation.👇
Follow our Youtube Channel: @ajakcybersecurity (361Videos)
Follow on Instagram: @ajakcybersecurity
So, my friend is a streamer and a PUBG addict. I won’t reveal the name due to privacy issues 🙏. He would often be streaming PUBG on YouTube. So, in order to stream, he installed a streaming app from Google Chrome instead of installing it from the Play Store. So, what just happened? The first mistake he made was installing it from Google Chrome (a third-party app), and the second one was linking his social media account with the third-party app
So, On a Fine Morning, My friend Texted me that He was getting Threatening messages Through the mail. so I asked him to send it, It was as follows:
The first thing I asked him was Whether He Clicked On any Phishing E-mails or Installed any other Third-Party Apps in recent days, The answer was No! So My First thought was that it could be his Own Friends doing some Pranks or Spamming kinds of Stuff.so I just told him to stay Calm and Told him to change the Passwords for his social media account, just for a small precaution
Unfortunately, He couldn’t change the Password because the Rate limit for changing the password was over for the day, which was already done by the Attacker and then He Just started Spamming OTP messages to him. The next mail was as follows:
LOL! I Found out that this Guy was a Script Kiddie or a Noob just trying to threaten People like this Moreover, this Guy Didn’t Anonymize Himself too, He could have been easily traced By Cyber experts and The next mail was as follows:
So, continuously, this guy just started to threaten by sending these types of emails to my friend. I just told him not to reply to the email and to report the email as phishing, so that the email will go to the spam folder. The next email was as follows
Things started to get interesting from here. The next precautionary step was advising him to install an antivirus app from the Google Play Store and to perform a full scan. This way, we could determine if any malicious files had been installed or if any other backdoors had been introduced.
ok! The scan was Successful and No malicious app or file was found. but this time the Email shocked Me.
Ok! I Just confirmed That the phone has been Installed with some backdoors. Cause once the scan was done the very next moment we received this Email. so the above emails were true, The Attacker can access anything like the Camera, and access the Gallery basically, the attacker has full phone control now.
so the next thing I instructed him was to do a Factory reset for the phone by taking a backup. cause When a phone is factory reset chances are high that The Malicious app or backdoors will also be removed. He too did the same thing, and YES! This was the next mail as follows:
Note: Backup in sense, just only the photos and documents, so that was the same condition here too!
And yes! The third-party app has also been removed now. This is where we understood that the streaming app had a backdoor. My friend told me that The app was installed about a year ago, which means the attacker had been observing all of my friend’s activities for about a year, patiently waiting for the opportunity moment to threaten him!
That was evil 😈
To confirm the app had been removed successfully, I told him to check the data monitor in his phone whether any apps were running in the background and It was No! Everything was perfect! This was the final Email sent by the attacker as follows:
You could Have also seen that even the antivirus couldn’t able to identify the backdoors, yes! the backdoor was an effective one though, It did not get detected when the scan was done. And like this more viruses and backdoors or getting created day by day, so don’t install any unnecessary third-party apps on your phone.
CYBER AWARENESS TIPS:
- Avoid installing or providing your credentials to any third-party apps.
- Be cautious of phishing links!
- If your phone is infected with any viruses or backdoors, take a backup and perform a factory reset.
- If the situation worsens, do not hesitate to file a complaint with cyber crime authorities or approach your local police station immediately.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
“கற்றவை பற்றவை🔥”
Learn Everyday, Happy Hacking 😁🙌
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Ajak
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Follow our Youtube Channel: @ajakcybersecurity
Follow on Instagram: @ajakcybersecurity.
