Kaspersky Lab has warned about the spread of an unofficial modified version of the WhatsApp application that can disseminate malicious software to infiltrate smart devices running on Android. In a statement regarding the issue, Kaspersky Lab experts said: "They discovered a model of the WhatsApp app containing previously unknown malware, which is a type of Trojan that spies on Android devices, named CanesSpy. The unofficial modified versions of WhatsApp containing this malware have been published for some time on Telegram channels in Arabic and Azerbaijani."
The company noted that "the unofficial modified versions of WhatsApp for Android offer users options for delayed posting and some other features, but the malware contained can breach phones, access contact lists, information about electronic accounts on the device, and also access documents. Furthermore, it can conduct recordings through device microphones."
Experts at Kaspersky Lab pointed out that "the total number of subscribers to the most popular Telegram channels that publish unofficial app versions is nearly two million users. In October alone, the company prevented over 340,000 cyberattacks across more than a hundred countries, with the largest number of these attacks recorded in Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Turkey, and Egypt, and users from Russia were also affected."
