Jay-Z 'Magna Carter Holy Grail' Cloned App Infecting Android Phones with Data-Theft Malware

We can all agree how today socially-Internet-connected world can no longer keep anything a secret, or for that matter release something 'official' like Jay-Z's latest album without it getting leaked early. Unfortunately, the Jay-Z "Magna Carter Holy Grail" album getting released early was only one issue as it was foreshadowed by a multitude of Samsung Galaxy phones becoming hacked through a bogus clone "Magna Carter Holy Grail" app.

People nowadays will do just about anything to get something for free or access new 'entertainment' before everyone else does, which is why the music mogul Jay-Z and all that revolves around him released a "Magna Carter Holy Grail" app for Samsung Galaxy phone users to download his new album on July 4th, a few days before the official release date of July 7th.

The unfortunate part about the app release giving Galaxy users early access to the album is hackers were a step ahead of everyone by cloning the "Magna Carter Holy Grail" app and releasing it in the wild only to allow the cybercrooks to access information on the phones that downloaded the bogus app.

McAfee determined that hackers used the cloned "Magna Carter Holy Grail" app to display album artwork featuring an image of Barack Obama wearing headphones with a 'YES WE SCAN' banner message over his head. Apparently, the 'YES WE SCAN' is a method of the app actually scanning data on the phone and then sending it to a command-and-control server.

Although some suspect the cloned app was just political rhetoric, the command-and-control server leads researchers to believe that the malware creators behind the app may try to use it to access financial data. Of course, you would have had to obtain the cloned app from a 3rd party, which is not a recommended action.

Android malware, for obvious reasons, is a growing problem. Android device users should never exacerbate the issue by downloading and installing apps from unknown or 3rd party sources no matter how promising the app claims to be.