Android users urged to turn on important security tool after spyware found silently stealing texts, photos and contacts
A malware virus could be on your Android phone right now, masquerading as Google Chrome and scanning your private data without you knowing what's going on.
A new strain called XLoader has been detected by cybersecurity experts in phones all around the world, from the United States to South Korea, with potentially terrible consequences.
According to Indian news site Newsbytes, the app masks itself by appearing to look like Google Chrome, and requests permissions to send and view SMS messages.
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From here, the malware can gain access to your photos, messages, contacts and more.
Handily, many of the major Android phone makers on the market should have malware and virus protection that will step in at various points of this process to warn you not to install unknown software on your device.
Since most apps and services are meant to be installed via the Google Play Store or another app store, doing so from a random link throws up obvious red flags to the system.
This can be overridden, of course, but should hopefully stop plenty of people from falling foul of XLoader.
If you keep your phone's software updated, you'll also almost always get security updates that are bundled into these updates and help to protect from malware like this - although whether and when XLoader might be caught out is anyone's guess.
There's also a really valuable malware protection app for Android called Google Play Protect, which is basically the gold standard for the sector - and it's free. It has the capacity to scan your entire phone for malware, and then let you know if certain apps are overstepping their bounds.
This leaves you free to uninstall the app and get rid of its meddling. Many phones now ship with Google Play Protect already pre-installed, but if you can't find it on your phone you should be able to search for it on the Google Play Store to get it downloaded.
Still, the biggest way to avoid being contaminated with XLoader is to make sure you never download an app from a link in a message, however credible it might look. Double check it and do some online research to see if it's remotely real before you commit to adding it to your phone.