If you happened to come up with a strange warning message informing you that you have been watching, downloading or circulating porn and hence your smartphone is being locked, don’t panic. You could be under attack of a malware known as Android-Trojen.Koler.A.
If your phone is infected with the malware, your phone is locked and you cannot do anything with it. A message pops up and states that you have been watching or downloading banned child pornographic images and videos and the law has detected this action. It further states that the law enforcement team has disabled all actions of the phone and you have to pay $300 as a fine or deal with circumstances.
ArsTechnica reported that the hacker has intelligently created this malware to create fear into the user’s mind and pay up before the cops land up at their door. This way of extorting money is estimated to a whopping $5 million around the world in just a single year.
The malware prevents the user from accessing the home screen, making it impossible to access the phone. The threat message is also intelligently coded which uses your geological location to alter the message to tailor the warnings on your phone according to your location and language.
In certain cases, the users were allowed to press the home button, but only to see the message popup back in 5 seconds.
The malware automatically gets downloaded from certain websites when a user visits for porn content. The porn websites claim that an Android-based app can enable you to view free videos and content from the website, which lures the user into downloading them and installing it. Once installed, the malware kicks into action and the user is at risk of losing data, money or even both.
In order to avoid such a circumstance, and all malware apps, avoid installing apps from third-party websites and install an antivirus. Make sure you disable feature to install third-party apps from the settings.
Image courtesy: Bitdefender
