Hacker News Reader

Comment by zibzab | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the title...

So the malware is installed by the user which then spams users contacts to install it too? And to do this you need to: 1 install shady app, 2 ignore security warnings and 3 manually give it special access to access user communication?

Yes, users can be very stupid but I wouldn't call this "wormable.

(Although we could all agree that Googles evaluation process is basically whack-a-mole).

View on HN

That's Checkpoint for you stretching the truth on every single one of their publications.

This sounds like the ‘this virus evades detection by hiding in a jpeg, until you manually extract it using this tool!’ stories we got 10 years ago.

I think there were cases where that was used to bypass some naive upload filters in conjunction with a back end that would detect and try to handle the attached/hidden malware.

A lot of users sideload apps all the time. Motivations vary, but eg Google doesn't let all Android users to access Play Store.

For these users I think it's pretty easy to fall for this. After all apps request overbroad permissions all the time and most users don't have the expertise to evaluate permissions nor the reputability of the publisher.

add a #4, which should be #1 in your list: people trying to pirate netflix (The app is a fake service that claims to allow users to view Netflix content from all around the world on their mobiles).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com