This dangerous new malware is hitting iOS and Android phones alike - and it's even stealing photos and crypto

• Malware-ridden apps are sneaking on to official app stores
• SparkKitty will steal photos to crack into your crypto wallet
• One infected app was downloaded over 10,000 times

A dangerous new malware strain targeting smartphone users has managed to sneak on to both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store without being detected, experts have warned.

SparkKitty was first spotted by cybersecurity experts at Kaspersky in January 2025, and uses optical character recognition to scan through your photos and harvest cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrases.

Most crypto currency exchanges will tell a user to write down a memorable phrase when creating an account for recovery purposes, but many users will simply screenshot their memorable phrase - making it super easy for SparkKitty to steal.