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T1513 Screen Capture

Adversaries may use screen capture to collect additional information about a target device, such as applications running in the foreground, user data, credentials, or other sensitive information. Applications running in the background can capture screenshots or videos of another application running in the foreground by using the Android MediaProjectionManager (generally requires the device user to grant consent).42 Background applications can also use Android accessibility services to capture screen contents being displayed by a foreground application.3 An adversary with root access or Android Debug Bridge (adb) access could call the Android screencap or screenrecord commands.15

Item Value
ID T1513
Sub-techniques
Tactics TA0035
Platforms Android
Version 1.3
Created 08 August 2019
Last Modified 20 March 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0422 Anubis Anubis can take screenshots.19
S0655 BusyGasper BusyGasper can use its keylogger module to take screenshots of the area of the screen that the user tapped.9
S0479 DEFENSOR ID DEFENSOR ID can abuse the accessibility service to read any text displayed on the screen.22
S1054 Drinik Drinik can record the screen via the MediaProjection library to harvest user credentials, including biometric PINs.21
S0478 EventBot EventBot can abuse Android’s accessibility service to capture data from installed applications.18
S0405 Exodus Exodus Two can take screenshots of any application in the foreground.10
S0408 FlexiSpy FlexiSpy can take screenshots of other applications.7
S0423 Ginp Ginp can capture device screenshots and stream them back to the C2.12
S0551 GoldenEagle GoldenEagle has taken screenshots.23
S0421 GolfSpy GolfSpy can take screenshots.13
S0485 Mandrake Mandrake can record the screen.15
S0407 Monokle Monokle can record the screen as the user unlocks the device and can take screenshots of any application in the foreground. Monokle can also abuse accessibility features to read the screen to capture data from a large number of popular applications.3
S1062 S.O.V.A. S.O.V.A. can take screenshots and abuse the Android Screen Cast feature to capture screen data.16
S0324 SpyDealer SpyDealer abuses Accessibility features to steal messages from popular apps such as WeChat, Skype, Viber, and QQ.20
S1069 TangleBot TangleBot can record the screen and stream the data off the device.11
S0558 Tiktok Pro Tiktok Pro can take screenshots.14
S0427 TrickMo TrickMo can use the MediaRecorder class to record the screen when the targeted application is presented to the user, and can abuse accessibility features to record targeted applications to intercept transaction authorization numbers (TANs) and to scrape on-screen text.17
S0489 WolfRAT WolfRAT can record the screen and take screenshots to capture messages from Line, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.8

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1013 Application Developer Guidance Application developers can apply the FLAG_SECURE property to sensitive screens within their apps to make it more difficult for the screen contents to be captured.6
M1012 Enterprise Policy Enterprise policies should block access to the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) by preventing users from enabling USB debugging on Android devices unless specifically needed (e.g., if the device is used for application development). An EMM/MDM can use the Android DevicePolicyManager.setPermittedAccessibilityServices method to set an explicit list of applications that are allowed to use Android’s accessibility features.
M1011 User Guidance Users should be advised not to grant consent for screen captures to occur unless expected. Users should avoid enabling USB debugging (Android Debug Bridge) unless explicitly required.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0041 Application Vetting API Calls
DS0042 User Interface System Settings

References

  1. Android Developers. (n.d.). Android Debug Bridge (adb). Retrieved August 8, 2019. ↩

  2. Android Developers. (n.d.). Android MediaProjectionManager. Retrieved August 8, 2019. ↩

  3. Bauer A., Kumar A., Hebeisen C., et al. (2019, July). Monokle: The Mobile Surveillance Tooling of the Special Technology Center. Retrieved September 4, 2019. ↩↩

  4. Dario Durando. (2019, July 3). BianLian: A New Wave Emerges. Retrieved September 4, 2019. ↩

  5. Zhang, V. (2015, July 21). Hacking Team RCSAndroid Spying Tool Listens to Calls; Roots Devices to Get In. Retrieved August 8, 2019. ↩

  6. Nightwatch Cybersecurity. (2016, April 13). Research: Securing Android Applications from Screen Capture (FLAG_SECURE). Retrieved November 5, 2019. ↩

  7. FlexiSpy. (n.d.). FlexiSpy Monitoring Features. Retrieved September 4, 2019. ↩

  8. W. Mercer, P. Rascagneres, V. Ventura. (2020, May 19). The wolf is back… . Retrieved July 20, 2020. ↩

  9. Alexey Firsh. (2018, August 29). BusyGasper – the unfriendly spy. Retrieved October 1, 2021. ↩

  10. Security Without Borders. (2019, March 29). Exodus: New Android Spyware Made in Italy. Retrieved September 3, 2019. ↩

  11. Felipe Naves, Andrew Conway, W. Stuart Jones, Adam McNeil . (2021, September 23). TangleBot: New Advanced SMS Malware Targets Mobile Users Across U.S. and Canada with COVID-19 Lures. Retrieved February 28, 2023. ↩

  12. ThreatFabric. (2019, November). Ginp - A malware patchwork borrowing from Anubis. Retrieved April 8, 2020. ↩

  13. E. Xu, G. Guo. (2019, June 28). Mobile Cyberespionage Campaign ‘Bouncing Golf’ Affects Middle East. Retrieved January 27, 2020. ↩

  14. S. Desai. (2020, September 8). TikTok Spyware. Retrieved January 5, 2021. ↩

  15. R. Gevers, M. Tivadar, R. Bleotu, A. M. Barbatei, et al.. (2020, May 14). Uprooting Mandrake: The Story of an Advanced Android Spyware Framework That Went Undetected for 4 Years. Retrieved July 15, 2020. ↩

  16. Francesco Lubatti, Federico Valentini. (2022, November 8). SOVA malware is back and is evolving rapidly. Retrieved March 30, 2023. ↩

  17. P. Asinovsky. (2020, March 24). TrickBot Pushing a 2FA Bypass App to Bank Customers in Germany. Retrieved April 24, 2020. ↩

  18. D. Frank, L. Rochberger, Y. Rimmer, A. Dahan. (2020, April 30). EventBot: A New Mobile Banking Trojan is Born. Retrieved June 26, 2020. ↩

  19. M. Feller. (2020, February 5). Infostealer, Keylogger, and Ransomware in One: Anubis Targets More than 250 Android Applications. Retrieved April 8, 2020. ↩

  20. Wenjun Hu, Cong Zheng and Zhi Xu. (2017, July 6). SpyDealer: Android Trojan Spying on More Than 40 Apps. Retrieved September 18, 2018. ↩

  21. Cyble. (2022, October 27). Drinik Malware Returns With Advanced Capabilities Targeting Indian Taxpayers. Retrieved January 18, 2023. ↩

  22. L. Stefanko. (2020, May 22). Insidious Android malware gives up all malicious features but one to gain stealth. Retrieved June 26, 2020. ↩

  23. A. Kumar, K. Del Rosso, J. Albrecht, C. Hebeisen. (2020, June 1). Mobile APT Surveillance Campaigns Targeting Uyghurs - A collection of long-running Android tooling connected to a Chinese mAPT actor. Retrieved November 10, 2020. ↩