Dutch and EU police say police in 11 countries have foiled a mobile phone scheme called “FlowBoot” which spread around the world through fake text messages.
Dutch cyber cops led an operation in May that targeted malware that infected Android phones using text messages sent from a parcel firm, according to AFP. Claim or say ‘someone is waiting for voicemail’.
Hackers would later steal bank details from infected phones, which would automatically send messages to other mobiles in the user’s contact list, and spread the virus like a flu virus.
The Dutch police said in a statement that “so far we have disconnected 10,000 victims of the Flowboat network and blocked more than 6.5 million spam text messages.”
The European Union’s police agency Europol said the FlowBoot was one of the fastest-spreading mobile malware to date and was capable of spreading like wildfire because of its ability to access the infected smartphone’s communications.
He said that the police had deactivated the malware but was still searching for the culprits.
“This floatboat infrastructure is now under the control of law enforcement agencies, which is trying to stop this catastrophic series,” Europol said.
The countries involved in the investigation are Australia, the United States, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands, which were assisted by Europol’s Cybercrime Center.
Europol said that since its first appearance in December 2020, FlowBoot has become one of the most notorious cyber scams in the world, wreaking havoc around the world.
The agency said the bug had damaged a large number of devices around the world, with major incidents occurring in Europe, the United States, Spain and Finland.
Australian media reported last year that the flowboat was spreading “like a tsunami” and that some users were being bombarded with messages.