Millions infected by spyware versions of Telegram

Cybersecurity researchers have found several spyware-infected versions of Telegram and Signal on the Google Play Store, designed to gather sensitive information from compromised Android devices, a new report has said. According to the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, these bogus apps include nefarious features that capture and send names, user IDs, contacts, phone numbers, and chat messages to an actor-controlled server. The activity has been codenamed “Evil Telegram” by the researchers. “Our experts discovered several infected apps on Google Play under the guise of Uyghur, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese versions of Telegram. The app descriptions are written in the respective languages and contain images very similar to those on the official Telegram page on Google Play,” the researchers said.