Adult Player Android Ransomware Looks To Embarrass Porn Hounds With A Selfie Money Shot

Ransomware is one of the most sickening types of malware out there, and one enterprising person (or group) has managed to take things to a new level: by bringing porn into it.

According to research firm Zscaler, this latest piece of malware is designed to sucker people into downloading a dedicated porn player simply called "Adult Player". We're not sure of the promises made, but I'd imagine that anyone who downloads it would hope that it would act as a portal for some free porn - or perhaps just add features that porn enthusiasts demand from a video player.

Nonetheless, once the player is installed, the malware automatically installs from a separate APK as part of a "reflection" attack - one where the program can modify its behavior at runtime rather than compile time. Zscaler assumes this is done to hide from some malware detectors.

After a while, when the Adult Player app is opened, the malware will silently take a picture of the user, and ultimately lock their device. Here's where this malware could freak most people out: when a phone unlock attempt is made, a screen like the one below will be seen. Ordinarily, this black image would be the person's face.

This screen attempts to look like an official FBI-issued one, claiming that the device has been detected of trying to download illegal porn. Naturally, as is the way with the FBI, the user could opt out of being thrown in jail by shelling out $500 via PayPal cash cards, at which point the user will regain use of their phone.

Interestingly, this malware doesn't seem that difficult to get rid of. If the device has a safe mode of some sort, it should be easy to remove administration privileges from this app and then remove it entirely. In the worst case, it seems like the phone could simply be restored through the low-level restore tool. Although that would purge all of the data on the device, it means that the phone wouldn't become virtually inoperable.

So there you have it, yet another reason to be extremely careful about what you do on your phone.