In a world where Mobile devices are an essential part of everyday lifethe applications installed on our phones have become personal assistants that help us every day. However, many of these applications, especially in the Android operating system, they have access to microphones that can be used to listen to us without our explicit knowledge.
The risk of this common practice in applications of different operating systems is that, under misused permissions that we accept without readingapps can record private conversations, collect sensitive information, or even use the data obtained for purposes such as targeted advertising or, in extreme cases, espionage.
That is why, in this article, we tell you What are those Android applications that listen to us the most, and “spy” on us?and how they are able to achieve that functionality with which, sometimes, our privacy can be compromised.
These are the Android applications that listen to us through a Trojan
It is true that these malicious applications They can be present in any operating system. However, these are much more common on Android since, in the case of iOSFor example, stands out for its safety.
In this sense, these applications that listen to us in our daily lives They do this through a Remote Access Trojan (RAT), better known as VajraSpy.being able to act incognito without raising suspicions among users, who end up being victims of malicious software.
So, the cybersecurity company Esetpublished a report last February, titled ‘VajraSpy: a patchwork of spy apps‘, in which he pointed out the most common applications in which these problems have been found are, mainly: Rafaqat, Privee Talk, Let’s Chat, Quick Chat, YohooTalk, TikTalk, Hello Chat, Nido, GlowChat, MeetMe, Chit Chat and WaveChat.
In this way, the application Trojan is capable of stealing information through the extraction of phone contacts, messages, whether through SMS, WhatsAppor any other instant messaging application, of the phone files and even call logs. Furthermore, as if that were not enough, the malware can record phone calls and even activate the phone’s camera at any time, thus recording any situation without the victim’s consent.
What is a Remote Access Trojan (RAT)?
A Remote Access Trojan (or RAT) It is a type of malicious software, also called ‘malware’designed to allow a cyber criminal to gain full control over their victim’s system remotely. Thus, this type of ‘malware’ camouflages itself as a legitimate programsuch as phone applications, or is installed without the user being aware of it.