MonitorMinor

MonitorMinor is a piece of malware capable of tracking down a user’s activity on social media applications such as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Gmail is in the same boat, as well. In this respect, MonitorMinor looks very much like commercially available surveillance software, which is why security experts have dubbed it ‘stalkerware.’. MonitorMinor is powerful software.

As such, MonitorMinor is capable of:

• Tracking a user’s geographical location
• Intercepting SMSs and phone calls
• Eavesdropping conversations led over messaging platforms.

An application that powerful must rely on a superuser (SU) utility to gain root system access. Since Android-based devices do not come on the market with such a utility preinstalled, MonitorMinor will not do the job it is meant to do unless the targeted Android device has such a superuser utility up and running. If present, the latter gives MonitorMinor escalated privilege, which in turn allows it to harvest all the calls and messages exchanged by the user on every possible communication channel, including but not limited to phone calls, Facebook, Viber, Instagram, Hangouts, Snapchat and Skype to name a few. This refers not only to the written communication but also to all video chats. Last but not least, MonitorMinor can keep a record of the victim’s browsing history, multimedia, contact, and system logs thanks to a built-in keylogger.

Unlike any other known piece of stalkerware, MonitorMinor is capable of retrieving the file storing your screen unlock credentials, as well. Thus, the people exploiting MonitorMinor might unlock your device any time easily. Its defense mechanism is so persistent that no conventional tool would be able to remove the stalkerware from an infected Android device.

Considering that experts have linked an Indian Gmail account with MonitorMinor, the stalkerware may have been developed in India – the country with the highest rate of MonitorMinor infections per capita at the moment.