German regulator warns of new banking and crypto malware ‘Godfather’

Financial authorities successful Germany are raising the alarm amid the accelerated dispersed of a caller fiscal malware affecting banking and cryptocurrency applications.

Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) released an authoritative connection connected Jan. 9, informing consumers of “Godfather,” a malware collecting idiosyncratic information successful banking and crypto apps.

BaFin emphasized that the caller microorganism is targeting astir 400 banking and crypto apps, including those operating successful Germany. Godfather malware attacks users by displaying fake websites of regular banking and crypto apps, stealing their login data.

According to the regulator, it is yet to beryllium determined however the malware attacks users’ devices. The malware is known to nonstop propulsion notifications to get the codes for two-factor authentication. “With this data, the cyber criminals whitethorn beryllium capable to summation entree to consumers' accounts and wallets,” BaFin noted.

The archetypal warnings connected Godfather surfaced successful December, with reports suggesting that the malware was affecting Android devices, targeting users successful 16 countries. Cybersecurity experts from Group-IB reportedly initially discovered the Godfather trojan successful 2021, but the malware has undergone monolithic codification upgrades and improvements and has seen a large spike successful enactment implicit the past fewer months.

Related: Nifty News: Fake Pokémon NFT crippled spreads malware, ‘Jai Ho’ vocalist to motorboat metaverse and more

According to Group-IB cybersecurity experts, astir 50% of each apps targeted by Godfather are banking apps, with astir of them coming from the United States. Germany is besides among the astir affected countries, alongside Turkey, Spain and Canada. The malware is besides known to people 110 cryptocurrency speech platforms and 94 cryptocurrency wallet apps.

Group-IB’s #ThreatIntelligence detected much than 400 planetary fiscal companies targeted by the #Godfather #Android banking #Trojan betwixt June 2021 and October 2022. Godfather’s predecessor is different #banking Trojan named #Anubis:https://t.co/Kf2IGvrLnk pic.twitter.com/JERnAuNfAC

— Group-IB Global (@GroupIB_GIB) December 21, 2022

Cryptojacking has emerged arsenic 1 of the biggest types of attacks connected crypto apps successful caller years. According to forecasts from the cybersecurity laboratory Kaspersky, 2023 will spot adjacent much malware attacks arsenic the twelvemonth volition apt beryllium marked by the “cyber epidemics with the biggest impact.”