Another virus? Yes. Very contagious. And dangerous – at least for your electronic devices. It is spread through a download link on WhatsApp instant messaging. Explanations.
Bad times for WhatsApp. After being criticized for its new terms of use, the famous instant messaging system is now plagued by malware, reports 20 Minutes. A virus with a formidable speed of expansion.
It was the cybersecurity researcher Lukas Stefanko d’Eset who raised the alarm. As it explains in the video below, once it has infected a smartphone, this virus automatically sends a tricked download link to received WhatsApp messages, in order to spread.
How? ‘Or’ What? By impersonating Google Play and an official Huawei application. The download link refers in fact to a fake web page which has the exact appearance of the Google app store and offers to download a supposedly official Huawei app.
And this fake is so well done that you have to be a seasoned user to spot it.
Fake ads and fake pages
During the installation of this fake application, the latter asks to have important access rights.
Thanks to these, the malware will be able to display false advertisements, explains 20 Minutes, but also false login pages to retrieve the identifiers of its victims.
Worse: when receiving a WhatsApp message, the virus will respond automatically using the “quick response” function. His response will consist of the famous tricked download link and the following message: “Download this application and win a smartphone”.
A simple message, but effective, capable of causing quite a few victims among less experienced users. Let us therefore recall here once again the basic rule: no link is clicked, received by email or by courier, without the absolute certainty that it has indeed been sent knowingly by one of your contacts – and that this one to you. Confirms unambiguously when you ask him the question.
