Earlier this year, McAfee researchers predicted in the McAfee Mobile Threat Report that we expect the number of targeted attacks on mobile devices to increase due to their ubiquitous growth combined with the sophisticated tactics used by malware authors. Last year we posted the first public blog about the Lazarus group operating in the mobile landscape. Our recent discovery of the campaign we have named RedDawn on Google Play just a few weeks after the release of our report proves that targeted attacks on mobile devices are here to stay.
RedDawn is the second campaign we have seen this year from the “Sun Team” hacking group. In January, the McAfee Mobile Research Team wrote about Android malware targeting North Korean defectors and journalists. McAfee researchers recently found new malware developed by the same actors that was uploaded on Google Play as “unreleased” versions. We notified both Google, which has removed the malware from Google Play, and the Korea Internet & Security Agency.
Our findings indicate that the Sun Team is still actively trying to implant spyware on Korean victims’ devices. (The number of North Korean defectors who came to South Korea exceeded 30,000 in 2016, according to Radio Free Asia.) Once the malware is installed, it copies sensitive information including personal photos, contacts, and SMS messages and sends them to the threat actors. We have seen no public reports of infections. We identified these malwares at an early stage; the number of infections is quite low compared with previous campaigns, about 100 infections from Google Play.
