Gooligan Malware Illustrates Need for Non-Traditional Authentication

A malware family dubbed Gooligan has compromised over a million Google accounts and is thought to be reaching 13,000 new devices per day.

According to a BioCatch blog post, the malware finds its way into a user’s device through a third party app or phishing, and then steals an authorization token of a Google account if the user is already logged in. Google is working to remove infected apps and to alert users who are trying to install them, but BioCatch asserts that the company “can’t keep track of Gooligan malware with traditional means.”

BioCatch has, of course, a non-traditional solution: A Microsoft Azure-based behavioral analytics system that assesses how users interact with sites and apps as well as their own devices to determine the risk that they are malicious bots. The company says its system is used by some of the biggest banks in the world, and is anticipating further growth.

Google has already demonstrated an interest in this kind of security. Earlier this year, the company revealed that it was working to establish a passive authentication system based on behavioral biometrics and other factors for Android devices, with the development team aiming to replace the password by the end of the year. That clearly hasn’t happened yet, but it’s also increasingly clear that it ought to.

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December 5, 2016 – by Alex Perala