Quote:A never-before-publicized mobile spy tool, a mobile surveillanceware remote access trojan (RAT) for Android called Monokle, has been spotted using novel techniques to exfiltrate data.
 
According to the Lookout researchers who discovered Monokle in the wild, the malware has the ability to self-sign trusted certificates to intercept encrypted SSL traffic. It can also record a phone’s lockscreen activity in order to obtain passcodes, and it can leverage accessibility services to gain access to third-party apps.
 
“While most of its functionality is typical of a mobile surveillanceware, Monokle is unique in that it uses existing methods in novel ways in order to be extremely effective at data exfiltration, even without root access,” according to a report issued on Wednesday. “Among other things, Monokle makes extensive use of the Android accessibility services to exfiltrate data from third party applications and uses predictive-text dictionaries to get a sense of the topics of interest to a target. Monokle will also attempt to record the screen during a screen unlock event so as to compromise a user’s PIN, pattern or password.”