Adversaries may mimic common operating system GUI components to prompt users for sensitive information with a seemingly legitimate prompt. The operating system and installed applications often have legitimate needs to prompt the user for sensitive information such as account credentials, bank account information, or Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Compared to traditional PCs, the constrained display size of mobile devices may impair the ability to provide users with contextual information, making users more susceptible to this technique’s use.

There are several approaches adversaries may use to mimic this functionality. Adversaries may impersonate the identity of a legitimate application (e.g. use the same application name and/or icon) and, when installed on the device, may prompt the user for sensitive information. Adversaries may also send fake device notifications to the user that may trigger the display of an input prompt when clicked.

Additionally, adversaries may display a prompt on top of a running, legitimate application to trick users into entering sensitive information into a malicious application rather than the legitimate application. Typically, adversaries need to know when the targeted application and the individual activity within the targeted application is running in the foreground to display the prompt at the proper time. Adversaries can abuse Android’s accessibility features to determine which application is currently in the foreground.

Two known approaches to displaying a prompt include: Adversaries start a new activity on top of a running legitimate application. Android 10 places new restrictions on the ability for an application to start a new activity on top of another application, which may make it more difficult for adversaries to utilize this technique. Adversaries create an application overlay window on top of a running legitimate application. Applications must hold the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission to create overlay windows.

This permission is handled differently than typical Android permissions and, at least under certain conditions, is automatically granted to applications installed from the Google Play Store. The SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission and its associated ability to create application overlay windows are expected to be deprecated in a future release of Android in favor of a new API.