Giveaway Scam Infects 65,000 Devices with Malware

guest · Aug 28, 2020

Giveaway Scam Infects 65,000 Devices with Malware
August 26, 2020
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/giveaway-scam-infects-65k-devices/

A family of Android apps is using the lure of free items to distribute a novel ad fraud botnet.

Victims of the scam are told that they will receive a complimentary gift when they download an app from the Google Play Store. However, the only thing received by victims is an infection of malware that silently loads ads in the background on their smart device.
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The ad fraud operation, discovered by White Ops’ Satori Threat Intelligence & Research team, which named it TERRACOTTA, started in late 2019. The team found that by the end of June 2020, more than 65,000 devices had been unwitting participants in the scam, over 5,000 apps had been spoofed, and more than 2 billion bid requests had been generated.

"What makes this unique is that the fraudsters were advanced in knowing how to pull off ad fraud verification plausibly," said a White Ops spokesperson.
"This means the ads were never being reported via the Google Play Store for showing ads, nor were users complaining of seeing unwanted ads. Instead, they were lying dormant, and the only 'free product' being delivered to users was a payload of ad fraud malware."
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White Ops: The Shoe is a Lie: How an Android Botnet Defrauded Advertisers and Consumers

Starting late 2019, a family of Android apps showed up on app stores with an enticing offer (as seen in Figure 1) . Download the app, fill in your details, select a pair of shoes (or event tickets, coupons, even expensive dental treatments depending on the TERRACOTTA app), and in 14 days time those shoes will be mailed to your front door, for free, with no strings attached! What a steal, literally...

Perhaps worth noting is the deviousness of the tactic used to distribute TERRACOTTA. Imagine yourself in the fraudster’s shoes (pun intended) looking for an effective means of malware distribution: the promise of free shoes at a later date has all the hallmarks of a classic malware lure, offering a limited supply of something for nothing, and encouraging users to ignore their better judgement and click that button for fear of missing out.
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But this tactic offers other ‘benefits’: the 14 day waiting period for the shoes means users are happy to leave an app installed on their phone that has no real functionality.
[...] unless the app is kept under observation for an extended period of time—which is costly—no bad behavior is observed and the malware stays undetected by the anti-virus community.
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Giveaway Scam Infects 65,000 Devices with Malware

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