May 03, 2021

Malicious messages, like those used to deceive ICQ users decades ago, have come back. For many younger users of modern messengers, such a scam is not familiar.

The cyberscammers attack primarily WhatsApp. Since mid-April, they have been massively sending out links to files with viruses. To make the messenger users become interested in the file, stimulate them download it to their smartphones and install the application, a time-tested scheme is used. The scammer says that this application changes the color of the messenger’s icon to pink, gold or some other. And there are people who believe in it.

The icon, of course, remains the same, but valuable information (photos, contact list, payment data, messaging history in instant messengers, usernames and passwords from sites and applications, and much more) leaks to the attackers from the victim’s smartphone. The malicious application disguises itself and behaves like a keylogger, that is, it records everything that the user types on the keyboard and forwards it to the remote server.

WhatsApp fights spreading of this virus by trying to block messages with dubious links, but now cybercriminals are attacking other messengers using a similar pattern.

Spreading viruses is much easier in modern messengers than it used to be in ICQ. There is no need to hack accounts – the scammer just goes into group chats with hundreds and thousands of interlocutors and posts links to malicious files there.

If you see such links, never follow them: this is the only effective way to protect yourself from the virus.