Malware detected that can disable Android gadgets

Trend Micro antivirus specialists announced the discovery of another malware that affects Android mobile devices. It is called HiddenMiner. As it is easy to guess, it uses infected gadgets to mine cryptocurrency, namely Monero.The malware gets on users' devices via third-party application stores. So far users in China and India have been infected, but there's a possibility that the geography of attacks can be expanded soon. Once on the victim's device, HiddenMiner may only give itself away with the appearance of an empty icon in the app list. Then, the malware will try to fraudulently obtain administrator rights, which will cause the icon to be hidden and the gadget to actively mine cryptocurrency for attackers. At the same time, the malware code does not contain any controllers or optimizers. This means that HiddenMiner will continuously mine cryptocurrency until all of the device's resources are exhausted. This, in turn, can lead to both overheating of the gadget and its failure. The tricks of the malware do not end here. On gadgets running Android 6.0 or higher, HiddenMiner locks the screen as soon as it notices that it is about to be deprived of administrator rights. Thus, to get rid of the malware, Trend Micro experts recommend rebooting the device in safe mode and deleting the administrator account.