How to detect if your cell phone was hacked to "mine" cryptocurrencies

Nearly a dozen types of computer viruses (malware), specially designed to infect smartphones; They begin to popularize among cybercriminals for being effective tools to get these devices to use their processors to coin cryptocurrencies without the owner of the cell phone detecting it, a computer security company reported.

With the rise of bitcoin and another important number of virtual currencies that emerged in recent years, software designs were also designed that secretly use the processing capabilities of devices-especially servers and computers-to solve the mathematical equation with which they are used. "mine" or mint this type of virtual currency.

Although the power of the processors of smartphones is, in general, more limited than that of a desktop or a laptop when solving mathematical equations, criminals pay more and more attention to mobile devices, especially the Android platform.

How to detect if my cell phone is infected

While the active use of the resources caused by the installation of this malware causes the device to warm up and lose its load quickly, very few users associate these signs with an infection.

Therefore, the company specializing in cybersecurity Kaspersky conducted an investigation that describes the different types of applications that "mine" in cell phones and discovered that many of them are still present in the official store Google Play and third party sites for download .

One of the main deceptions is the one of the falsified applications to which one arrives through advertisements that promise improvements with respect to the original or its gratuity.

"We found false versions of Instagram, Netflix, Bitmoji and other applications, pretending to be popular programs and games, but in reality they show publicity to the user and, without knowing it, they are dedicated to cryptocurrency mining," they explained from Kaspersky.

Cybercriminals also use a design technique known as "web frameworks" that facilitates the creation of mobile applications but can hide the mining system.

"Most of the time these applications are distributed through third-party sites, but we also find one in the official Google Play store, and we immediately reported our discovery to Google, which eliminated the mining program," they explained. cybersecurity company.

Among the most sophisticated are those who design an application that copies the utilities of another and, while performing the function of the original, also, mine cryptocurrencies.

According to Kaspersky, the most popular crypto-contracting applications discovered are related to football. In their names you can often find the PlacarTV brand or something similar, and its main function is to show soccer videos while secretly engaging in cryptocurrency mining.

The computer team also discovered an application that does not have any of the useful functions of a legitimate application, and is installed as a pornography application or as the Android Service system application, but uses various layers of encryption to avoid being uninstalled.

This Trojan can also monitor the battery charge and the temperature of the device to extract cryptocurrencies with less risk for the device and, consequently, prevent the user from detecting the infection.

From Kaspersky said that the attackers are not unaware that the calculation capacity of smartphones is limited but, on the other hand, that is compensated by simpler methods of infection than those used for a computer, the lack of antivirus installed on cell phones and the ignorance of the users about the symptoms that the infection produces.