The latest ESET discovery of the first known lock-screen-type Android ransomware that spreads in the wild and sets the phone's PIN lock is examined.
Unfortunately, malware writers have stepped up their game, and with the new Android ransom-lockers, detected by ESET as Android/Lockerpin.A, users have no effective way of regaining access to their device without root privileges or without some other form of security management solution installed, apart from a factory reset that would also delete all their data.
Moreover, this ransomware also uses a nasty trick to obtain and preserve Device Administrator privileges so as to prevent uninstallation. This is the first case in which we have observed this aggressive method in Android malware.
The latest ESET discovery of the first known lock-screen-type Android ransomware that spreads in the wild and sets the phone's PIN lock is examined.
Unfortunately, malware writers have stepped up their game, and with the new Android ransom-lockers, detected by ESET as Android/Lockerpin.A, users have no effective way of regaining access to their device without root privileges or without some other form of security management solution installed, apart from a factory reset that would also delete all their data.
Moreover, this ransomware also uses a nasty trick to obtain and preserve Device Administrator privileges so as to prevent uninstallation. This is the first case in which we have observed this aggressive method in Android malware.