WhatsApp cloned app is not accessible through the Google Play Store and can only be downloaded from websites.
With over 390 million users, WhatsApp is among the most popular instant messaging services worldwide. The most recent threat report from cybersecurity research company ESET, titled T2 2022 Threat Report, claims that GB WhatsApp, a cloned, third-party, unofficial version of WhatsApp, is spying on users' chats in India.
However, this cloned app is not accessible through the Google Play Store and can only be downloaded from websites. There are numerous versions of the app that are available and loaded with malware because there are no security checks.
“WhatsApp is even temporarily banning accounts that use such unsupported apps and if these accounts continue to use them, they are permanently banned from accessing WhatsApp," the report says.
India is listed among the nations with the highest number of Android trojan detections, the report continues. For those who are unfamiliar, a trojan agent is malware that downloads onto a computer pretending to be a trustworthy application. Due to the fact that trojan malware has no noticeable effects on your phone's normal operation, it can take some time to detect it.
India came in second place behind China (53%) in the report as the geolocation for the biggest internet of things (IoT) botnet known as "Mozi" from May to August 2022. According to the report, Android threat detections increased by 9.5% in T2 2022. The number of bots in the IoT botnet "Mozi" decreased by 23%. In May through August, there were only 383,000 impacted devices, down from 500,000.
“These statistics confirm the assumption that the ‘Mozi’ botnet is on autopilot, running without human supervision since its reputed author was arrested in 2021," the report says.
“Russia was also the country that was most targeted by ransomware, with some of the attacks being politically or ideologically motivated by the war," said Roman Kovac, Chief Research Officer at ESET.
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