L’app Android “iRecorder — Screen Recorder”, which allows you to record your screen and got thousands of downloads on the Google store, proved to be one spyware: Started monitoring its users, also stealing microphone recordings and other files from the user’s phone.
This well-known Android app is spyware, which spies on your smartphone
ESET’s research found that the Android app, “iRecorder — Screen Recorder”, inserted the malicious code as app update almost a year after it first appeared on Google Play. The code, according to ESET, allowed the app to covertly send a minute of ambient audio from the device microphone every 15 minutes, as well as exfiltrate documents, web pages and media files from the user’s phone.
The app is no longer available on Google Play. Stand you have installed the app, you should remove it from your device. When the malicious app was deleted from the app store, it had achieved more than 50,000 downloads.
Spyware
ESET is naming the malicious code Ah Rata modified version of an open source remote access trojan called AhMyth. Remote Access Trojans (or RATs) exploit extensive access to a victim’s device and can often include remote control, but they also work similar to spyware e stalkerware.
According to Lukas Stefanko, a security expert at ESET who disclosed the malware, the iRecorder app had no malicious features when it was released in September 2021.
The app started behaving maliciously after receiving an update that contained the malicious AhRat code. The app exploited the permission of access the device’s microphone, since it was a screen recording app. And secretly recorded the conversations. Something very dangerous for the privacy and safety of users.