And malwarepreviously unknown, was detected by experts at Kaspersky Lab. According to researchers, the malicious agent targeted the desktop version of the app note Telegramexploiting victims’ computers to mine cryptocurrencies (in the Pacific Monero e Zcash).
All this is worrying taking into account how widespread Telegram is: there are talks of 200 million registered users in the first quarter of 2018, with a gradual increase in the following years.
The identified malware appears to act by exploiting the reading system from right to leftlinked to some languages supported by the app, through which cybercriminals manage to launch the malicious agent.
According to what emerged from Kaspersky’s research, most of the infections were detected on Russian territory and, apparently, the same group linked to the operation had the same origins. The company that produces the well-known software reported the exploit to Telegram last October and, at present, the platform has effectively corrected this flaw.
Telegram desktop app to mine cryptocurrencies: a delicate moment for the well-known messaging app
The researchers wanted to raise a clear alarm: Telegram is not the only app potentially subject to this type of attack. Similar vulnerabilities have previously been exploited in the context of WhatsApp.
All this happens at a delicate moment for the messaging app, given that it has revealed its intention to start a private token saleexchangeable as alternative currencies (therefore similar to Bitcoin o Ethereum). The entire operation, in fact, promises to be very large, with an overall coin value that could reach i 2 billion dollars.
On the other hand, it is not the only security problem reported in recent weeks regarding Telegram. In fact, just a few days ago, the discovery of one caused a lot of talk falla RCE on the platform.