Threat Source newsletter (April 21, 2022) — Sideloading apps is as safe as you make it
Summary: Cisco Talos's April 21, 2022 newsletter covers the Apple-Epic legal fight over sideloading and a proposed EU law that would require smartphone makers to allow any app store, noting attackers have repeatedly used sideloading to deliver malware. The same edition describes ZingoStealer, a freely available malware that uses Telegram chat features for executable delivery and data exfiltration, steals credentials and cryptocurrency wallets, mines cryptocurrency, and has already changed hands, spreading through fake game cheats on Telegram and Discord.
Key Takeaway: ZingoStealer is free, already circulating among multiple threat actors, and can pull in follow-on payloads like RedLine and the XMRig miner, so the population of attackers able to run it is not limited to the group that built it. On the app-store question, the newsletter's own point is that sideloading is only as safe as the store behind it, which puts the review burden on whichever new marketplaces a law would let onto devices.
Read the original at Cisco Talos ↗
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