What is Judy? Is it so dangerous?
The Check Point officially announced the info about Judy. The organization in a blog post says, that this malware, named as Judy, was discovered by the research time recently. "Check Point analysts found another far-reaching malware campaign on Google Play, Google's official application store. The malware, named "Judy," is an auto-clicking adware which was detected on 41 apps designed by a Korean organization," says Check Point.
The creepy part about Judy is it has been hiding in-app codes since April 2016. In spite of the fact that many applications that have the Judy code directly embedded into them, they have still been downloaded "between 4.5 million to 18.5 million" times and that there is no verdict yet on the exact number of infected devices.
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What would Judy do after infecting the device?
Judy as an adware makes money for its developers by generating fake ad clicks after infecting the phone. The infection occurs after a user downloads the apps that are directly linked to Judy, from Google Play Store. Once the device is infected, the app will establish a connection to Control & Command Centre managed by the developers. "To bypass all the firewalls and Google Play's security, the hackers develop an app that looks legit, which is meant to establish a connection to the device. Once the app is on the device, it secretly registers receivers to establish a link to Control & Command Centre. The server then sends a load of malicious waves to the device says the Check Point.
In simple words, Judy is just an adware which is specifically designed to generate fake ad clicks. It does not steal any detail from the user’s devices, instead, it’s only work is to create fake ad clicks to generate revenue for the malware authors.
This does not mean that you need not be worried about Judy, after all, it is a malware its code can be changed anytime just by an update from the Control and Command Centre which is managed by the hackers. This malware is exceptionally complex. As distinct by its design, it can even by-pass Google's security. As of now, Judy might not be stealing anything from the devices. But it’s not too long before the hackers become aggressive in their approach and plan on stealing personal details of a user, i.e., credit card details, user id and password or any other confidential files. The major hit here which everyone would be missing is that the infected devices have a malware in them which connects the devices to the Control and Command Centre, this means they can modify the malware at any given time without the victim’s knowledge.
Check Point reveals a surprising fact about Judy that it comes from a recognized developer. “All the malicious apps directly linked with Judy were developed by Kiniwini, a Korean company. This company was known to develop mobile applications for both Android and iOS platforms and is registered on google play as ENISTUDIO corp. It is not every day we come across such well-established organization developing revenue through malware attacks.”
Google’s verdict on the Judy incident:
After Check Point alerted Google about the Judy malware, all the apps directly linked to Judy were rapidly removed from the Play Store, the blog said. The first occurrence of this malware is yet to be determined, hence the actual count of the infected devices stays unknown.
