- Group-IB links poisoned mobile banking apps to GoldFactory
- Attackers decompile legitimate apps, add trojans/backdoors, and spread them via phishing lures and fake sites
- Advanced malware families enable full device takeover, exposing tens of thousands to banking fraud
Hackers are tricking people into downloading poisoned mobile banking apps, stealing their login credentials, monitoring their activity, and in many cases – enabling financial fraud.
This is according to cybersecurity researchers Group-IB who, in a recent report, said that the group is most likely GoldFactory, known for stealing facial recognition data and targeting companies and consumers in the Asia-Pacific region.
The first stage of the process is to decompile a legitimate banking app. This allows the attackers to add code of their own, usually a remote-accessed trojan or a form of backdoor. Then, they recompile the app, and create a landing page that, in most respects, is identical to the authentic one.
Sophisticated banking fraud
From there, they engage in “targeted social-engineering campaigns”, impersonating local governments, or different service providers, the researchers said. In other words, the attackers create convincing phishing lures, tricking people into visiting fake government and service provider websites, and sideloading these poisoned applications.
The worst part is that the app, on the surface, behaves as it is supposed to, convincing the victims and making them oblivious to what is happening in the background.
“GoldFactory uses a suite of advanced hooking malware families – including SkyHook, FriHook, PineHook and Gigabud variants – to bypass app-integrity checks, hide malicious activity, and take full control of infected devices. These tools allow attackers to capture sensitive data, automate on-screen actions, and even remotely view and operate the victim’s phone,” Group-IB explained.
While the focus so far is on Asia-Pacific, the approach enabled rapid deployment across countries, it was said. Tens of thousands of users, and dozens of financial institutions, are therefore exposed to “high-impact banking fraud”.
Craig Jones, former Cybercrime Director at Interpol, recently spoke about GoldFactory on an episode of Masked Actors, and said its modus operandi “is sophisticated banking fraud.”
TechRadar Pro first reported on GoldFactory in mid-February 2024, when Gold-IB discovered GoldPickaxe, a trojan that steals biometric data and uses it to generate convincing deepfakes which can later be used to break into mobile banking applications.
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