Found: 280 Android apps that use OCR to steal cryptocurrency credentials [Ars Technica]

Optical Character Recognition converts passwords shown in images to machine-readable text.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Researchers have discovered more than 280 malicious apps for Android that use optical character recognition to steal cryptocurrency wallet credentials from infected devices.

The apps masquerade as official ones from banks, government services, TV streaming services, and utilities. In fact, they scour infected phones for text messages, contacts, and all stored images and surreptitiously send them to remote servers controlled by the app developers. The apps are available from malicious sites and are distributed in phishing messages sent to targets. There’s no indication that any of the apps were available through Google Play.

A high level of sophistication

The most notable thing about the newly discovered malware campaign is that the threat actors behind it are employing optical character recognition software in an attempt to extract cryptocurrency wallet credentials that are shown in images stored on infected devices. Many wallets allow users to protect their wallets with a series of random words. The mnemonic credentials are easier for most people to remember than the jumble of characters that appear in the private key. Words are also easier for humans to recognize in images.

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