Tiny.z

Tiny.z is an Android Banking Trojan that was offered for rent on popular hacking forums, and cybercriminals could use its features in exchange for around $2,000 a month. Of course, the staggering price did not discourage criminals from paying, since the proper use of the Tiny.z banking Trojan could yield great returns. One of the famous hacking groups that are suspected have operated with the Tiny.z Trojan is Cron, a Russian-based group of criminals that are best known for their involvement with the Cron Banking Trojan.

The Trojan Banker 'For Hire' Used by the Cron Group

The first samples of Tiny.z were noticed to be active in 2016, and it is suspected that the Cron group got its hands on the malware during the same period since they were looking to expand their operation to regions other than Russia. Tiny.z is said to be compatible with banks worldwide, and it has been used in attacks against Germany, France, USA, Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries. This Trojan works in a rather basic way – if it detects that the victim is using a particular bank app on the infected device, the Trojan will inject an overlay, which prompts them to enter their personal bank account data. The overlay is stylized with the bank's icon and name that the malware retrieves from the Google Play Store.

There is no information about the exact methods that criminals use to bring the Tiny.z Trojan to their targets, but it is very likely that they rely on typical SMS and email phishing, or on social engineering tricks that involve the use of bogus copies of popular Android applications. To stay safe from threats like this one, we advise you to use an up-to-date Android anti-malware app, as well as to be very vigilant about the types of programs you download on your mobile device.