

The service says it now has 500 million active users.

In the wake of the WhatsApp controversy, the company, which pushes itself as a privacy-focused service that provides both one-on-one secure messaging as well as more social features like group chats, shared that it had gained 25 million (Opens in a new tab) users over a 72-hour period in mid-January. Telegram has been around since 2013, but it's currently having a moment. Following a since delayed and confusing terms of service update that will allow WhatsApp to share your data with its parent company, privacy-concerned users are looking for alternatives. "Unsurprisingly, this constitutes a ripe opportunity for cybercriminals to abuse the situation.Are you looking to leave the Facebook-owned private messaging app WhatsApp? "People who wish to use these services have to resort to indirect means of obtaining them," the researchers said. The campaign, like a similar malicious cyber operation that came to light last year, is geared towards Chinese-speaking users, primarily motivated by the fact that both Telegram and WhatsApp are blocked in the country. It's also worth pointing out that these clusters, despite following an identical modus operandi, represent disparate sets of activity likely developed by different threat actors. RESERVE YOUR SEATĪll the analyzed RAT samples are based on the publicly available Gh0st RAT, barring one, which employs more anti-analysis runtime checks during its execution and uses the HP-socket library to communicate with its server. Discover the Hidden Dangers of Third-Party SaaS AppsĪre you aware of the risks associated with third-party app access to your company's SaaS apps? Join our webinar to learn about the types of permissions being granted and how to minimize risk.
