Romania, world’s most affected country by new cyber threat that steals passwords, payment data

Security researchers have discovered an aggressive computer threat that hides on the infected device and has access to all the personal data of the victims, stealing the users’ passwords and even banking data, Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender announced.

The company also said that Romania is the most affected country in the world by this new cyber threat.

“Called Scranos, the threat is spreading rapidly globally, with extremely intense activity in Romania, India, Brazil, France, Italy and Indonesia. Scranos infects the user's device both through seemingly legitimate apps such as e-readers, video players, drivers, or even security solutions, as well as through illegally installed programs,” Bitdefender said in a press release.

Once installed, Scranos hides with the help of a rootkit (a software driver) and spies on the victim. The threat can extract access data from various browsers such as Google Chrome, Chromium, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Baidu Browser and Yandex, and can steal payment data from websites such as Facebook, Amazon and Airbnb. It can also send friend requests and messages with infected links from the victim’s Facebook account or subscribe to various YouTube channels. Of the YouTube channels promoted by attackers and monitored by Bitdefender, one gathered over 3,100 subscribers in one day.

Moreover, Scranos can steal all Internet browsing history and download and execute files at the discretion of the attackers. Almost two thirds of victims use the Windows 10 operating system, and a quarter are Windows 7 users, Bitdefender also said.

To avoid Scranos infection, users are recommended to download and install only licensed apps, use a reliable security solution, and always update the operating system and programs used to the latest version.

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