Avira Blog: Clientor Android malware makes a proxy out of your phone

[browneylad]

Clientor may look like a well-behaved voice message app, asking for permission to do just the right things, but it is quietly setting up your device to be its secret proxy server.

Creating a proxy server in an Android smartphone could give an invasive hacker a way into an internal network or help it build a collection of Clientor-enabled devices to launch DDoS attacks. And of course, if you are on a limited data plan or roaming, this could hit you right in the pocketbook with extra data costs. Some apps’ appearances are indeed deceiving.

It looked so cute

Our investigation into Clientor started when we found this tiny little “Voice Messages” app and its cute green Android logo in the PlayStore. With a lot of suspect apps in the Play Store, we are used to looking carefully at the permissions before installing them. However, this one didn’t have any of the suspicious permissions we are used to seeing:

Read more here

Avira Blog link

[akiratoriyama]

With 99% of android devices lagging on security updates, it's a big surprise how more vulnerabilities have not been exploited yet.

[darktwilight]

the smartphone manufacturers are putting
better to have people buy a new smartphone every year than to offer security updates !

That many smartphones still have a current Android 9
shows us Lineage OS
https://lineageos.org/Changelog-22/