Maverick: a new banking Trojan abusing WhatsApp in a mass-scale distribution


A malware campaign was recently detected in Brazil, distributing a malicious LNK file using WhatsApp. It targets mainly Brazilians and uses Portuguese-named URLs.

To evade detection, the command-and-control (C2) server verifies each download to ensure it originates from the malware itself. The whole infection chain is complex and fully fileless, and by the end, it will deliver a new banking Trojan named Maverick, which contains many code overlaps with Coyote. In this blog post, we detail the entire infection chain, encryption algorithm, and its targets, as well as discuss the similarities with known threats.

Read more…
Source: Kaspersky


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • More than 1 million users affected in Mathspace data breach across Australia and New Zealand

    September 7, 2026

    More than a million people, including students, school staff, and parents, have been affected following a data breach at Mathspace, according to the learning provider. The company said, in a blog post, “unauthorised parties had accessed an internal reporting system used by Mathspace” and the exposed information included names and email addresses. It said the attackers accessed ...

  • G7 tells businesses to get ready for quantum cybersecurity threats

    September 7, 2026

    The G7, a collection of some of the world’s most powerful economies, is urging organizations to adopt quantum-resistant encryption as soon as possible and minimize the risk of losing sensitive data to technologically advanced threat actors. Virtually every industry in the world today relies on encryption (the process of converting readable data into scrambled, unreadable data ...

  • Dissecting a PHP web server rootkit

    September 7, 2026

    SophosLabs recently acquired a Linux implant associated with compromised BIG-IP Access Policy Management (APM) environments that use Apache and PHP components. The malware demonstrates advanced techniques including custom ELF loading, function hooking, and runtime code patching to evade detection while maintaining persistent access through hidden web shells. The implant delivers a familiar outcome – on-demand server‑side ...

  • Ransomware hackers dump 1.4 million stolen records from German government

    September 7, 2026

    A cybercriminal group known as Rhysida allegedly broke into the network of Berlin’s state government and exfiltrated 1.44 million files. They then tried to extort the government entity for money and when that failed, they leaked it all into the dark web. According to multiple sources, the group first claimed responsibility for the attack on an ...

  • US military disabled ad tracking on troops’ devices following reports of targeted attacks

    September 4, 2026

    The U.S. Department of Defense has disabled advertising tracking on troops’ phones and computers as part of an effort to protect them from threats that target their locations, according to a letter shared with Sen. Ron Wyden. Per a letter shared with the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wyden said that the U.S. Army, ...

  • Angry Birds: Toy Ghouls’ new toys

    September 4, 2026

    Kaspersky continue tracking the activity of Toy Ghouls (also known as Bearlyfy, Laboo.boo, and Feral Wolf), a financially motivated group that has been targeting Russian organizations since 2025. The attackers initially relied exclusively on tools pulled from public GitHub repositories along with leaked Babuk and LockBit ransomware builders, later shifting to their own custom ransomware, GenieLocker. In ...