Gooligan Android malware used to breach a million Google accounts

Check Point security researchers have revealed a new variant of Android malware, breaching the security of more than one million Google accounts.

The new malware campaign, named Gooligan, roots Android devices and steals email addresses and authentication tokens stored on them. With this information, attackers can access users’ sensitive data from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite.

Key findings

• The campaign infects 13,000 devices each day and is the first to root over a million devices.
• Hundreds of email addresses are associated with enterprise accounts worldwide.
• Gooligan targets devices on Android 4 (Jelly Bean, KitKat) and 5 (Lollipop), which represent nearly 74% of Android devices in use today.
• After attackers gain control over the device, they generate revenue by fraudulently installing apps from Google Play and rating them on behalf of the victim.
• Every day Gooligan installs at least 30,000 apps on breached devices, or over 2 million apps since the campaign began.

Check Point reached out to the Google security team immediately with information on this campaign. “As part of our ongoing efforts to protect users from the Ghost Push family of malware, we’ve taken numerous steps to protect our users and improve the security of the Android ecosystem overall,” stated Adrian Ludwig, Google’s director of Android security.

Among other actions, Google has contacted affected users and revoked their tokens, removed apps associated with the Ghost Push family from Google Play, and added new protections to its Verify Apps technology.

Check Point’s Mobile Research Team first encountered Gooligan’s code in the malicious SnapPea app last year. In August 2016, the malware reappeared with a new variant and has since infected at least 13,000 devices per day. The infection begins when a user downloads and installs a Gooligan-infected app on a vulnerable Android device, or by clicking on malicious links in phishing attack messages.