The Trojan virus that can literally melt your phone

  • 27/12/2017

A new virus doing the rounds threatens to literally destroy your phone, if allowed to make its home on the device.

The malware, known as the Loapi Trojan, disguises itself as either antivirus software, an advert or a harmless app, but uses the phone's processing power to mine crypotcurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Mining cryptocurrency can be a lucrative business - but the cost of undertaking the process is expensive, meaning that if hackers can outsource, they can make plenty of money from it.

The downside of that for your phone is that the mining process expends so much energy that it can overheat your phone and cause it to melt.

That's right - your phone could end up a molten pile of glass, plastic and steel, if it contracts the Loapi Trojan.

While it's thought this is the first malware to physically break a phone, rather than just affect its software, there is good news - it'll only affect Android devices.

That means if you have an iPhone or any other phone that has an operating system not run by Google, you don't need to worry.

However, if you do, be weary of dodgy-looking apps, especially those downloaded outside the Google Play store, and of malicious adverts.

Newshub.