• Technology The 17 apps that empty your bank account without you noticing: delete them immediately

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Viruses can lurk from any device, computer scientists, of course, let's leave the coronavirus for another section. The first was

Creeper

, in the 70s, which had the honor of launching the concept of computer virus. Since then, they have evolved so much that despite huge annual cybersecurity budgets, events have shown that neither companies nor governments are safe from cyberattacks with

ransomware

and malicious malware.

That is why, from the State Security Forces and Bodies, they alert the population every time a virus appears that can lodge in their terminals and disrupt their lives.

The Belgian police have warned in a statement published on their website, the return of the

Joker

virus

, a Trojan that shares a name with Batman's nemesis

, whose entanglement consists of subscribing the user to payment services on Android devices, without consent , Sure.

"This malicious program has been detected in eight Play Store applications that Google has removed," the text explains, although if you have any of them installed, they

strongly recommend uninstalling them

.

According to researchers from the cybersecurity company Quick Heal Security Lab, this virus has access to text messages, contacts and a lot of information on the phone. In this way, it is able to subscribe the owner of the terminal to websites that offer paid services, all without him noticing. "

You risk a big surprise at the end of the month in your bank account or on your credit card,

" says the Belgian Police, since the victims will find charges, of which they were not aware, in the invoice for the month.

The Joker Trojan virus belongs to a family of malware known as Bread, present in malicious applications, whose objective is to authorize operations without the user's consent, that is, to subscribe to premium services.

The scam occurs through SMS and WAP

(wireless application protocol)

payments

.

Two techniques that take advantage of the linking of operators with vendors to facilitate the payment of services with the mobile bill.

Even though both parties ask for device verification,

they don't from the user and Joker is 'quiet'

enough to go unnoticed.

The first time there was evidence of this virus was in September 2019 and since the beginning of 2020,

Google Play Protect

has eliminated more than 1,700 affected applications before any user downloaded them.

Although in the specific case of 24 Google Play applications, although they were eliminated, they had previously reached almost 500,000 downloads, affecting more than thirty countries, including the US, Argentina, Brazil and Spain.

Affected apps

Even if they are no longer on Google Play, if you have any of these applications, uninstall immediately and review the charges on the bank account.

The affected apps are:

Auxiliary Message

Element Scanner

Fast Magic SMS

Free CamScanner

Go Messages

Super Message

Super SMS

Travel Wallpapers

A list that increases to

19 applications in total

, thanks to many others that the cybersecurity company Zscaler has found:

Free Affluent Message

PDF Photo Scanner

Delux Keyboard

Comply QR Scanner

PDF Converter Scanner

Font Style Keyboard

Translate Free

Saying Message

Private Message

Read Scanner

Print Scanner

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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