Description

The Medusa banking trojan for Android has resurfaced after nearly a year of reduced activity, now targeting France, Italy, the United States, Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. Since May, the new variants have been more compact, requiring fewer permissions while featuring new capabilities to initiate transactions directly from compromised devices. Known also as TangleBot, Medusa is an Android malware-as-a-service (MaaS) operation first discovered in 2020, offering keylogging, screen controls, and SMS manipulation. The recent campaigns, identified by Cleafy, showcase lighter malware variants with full-screen overlaying and screenshot capturing. Evidence of the latest Medusa variants emerged in July 2023, with Cleafy observing campaigns using SMS phishing ('smishing') to sideload the malware via dropper applications. These campaigns, attributed to five separate botnets (UNKN, AFETZEDE, ANAKONDA, PEMBE, and TONY), involved fake apps like a Chrome browser, a 5G connectivity app, and a fake streaming app called 4K Sports. Notably, the UNKN botnet targets European countries, especially France, Italy, Spain, and the UK, and the 4K Sports app's use as bait aligns with the ongoing UEFA EURO 2024 championship. Cleafy notes that Medusa's campaigns and botnets are managed by a central infrastructure that fetches URLs for command and control (C2) servers from public social media profiles. The malware now requests only essential permissions but still requires Android's Accessibility Services. It retains the ability to access contacts and send SMS, key for distribution. New commands have been added, including ‘setoverlay’ for deceptive screen overlays and ‘take_scr’ for screenshot capturing, enhancing its stealth and data theft capabilities. Despite no dropper apps being found on Google Play, the increase in cybercriminals adopting MaaS suggests that distribution strategies will likely become more sophisticated and diversified. Medusa’s evolving capabilities and expanded targeting signal a potential rise in infections and a higher victim count.