Georgia Tech’s New Tool Can Detect Malware on Android Phones

Screen readers, voice-to-text, and other accessibility features have enabled people with disabilities to use smartphones. Yet these same features make the phones more accessible to hackers, too.

Malware uses these accessibility tools to read screens and click on things it shouldn’t — with disastrous consequences, like transferring large sums of money from a banking app or even preventing the malware from being uninstalled. All it takes is a user clicking on a phishing link or downloading the wrong app on the Google Play Store to install malware on a phone. Then everything from cryptocurrency apps to rideshare apps that have credit cards stored in a virtual wallet become vulnerable.