An extortion campaign targeting Chinese, Korean, and Japanese speakers recently started using a new piece of spyware, mobile security firm Lookout reported on Wednesday.
The campaign is focused on infecting iOS and Android of illicit sites, such as those offering escort services, in order to steal personal information, likely with the intent to blackmail or extort victims.
Dubbed Goontact, the spyware typically masquerades as secure messaging applications. Once it has infected a device, it targets a broad range of data for exfiltration, including device identifiers and phone numbers, contacts, SMS messages, photos on external storage, and location information.
“Tablets and smartphones are a treasure trove of personal data. These devices store private data, such as contacts, photos, messages and location. Access to all of this data enables cybercriminals like the operators of Goontact to run a successful extortion campaign,” Lookout notes.
The attacks target users in multiple Asian countries, including China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The victims are first lured to sites that purportedly allow them to connect with women, where they are encouraged to install a mobile app for proper communication (bogus audio- or video-related issues are invoked).
Without real functionality, the app is meant to steal the victim’s address book. The attackers then use this information to extort money from the target.
Websites used in these attacks had naming, appearance, and targeting similarities, and also used logos that were previously observed on domains used in a sextortion campaign uncovered in 2015.
The Goontact campaign is believed to have been active since at least 2013. The earliest observed Goontact sample, however, is dated ..
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