Researcher Suguru Ishimaru from security firm Kaspersky Lab said the malware had been seen in Japan in March.
"According to our telemetry data, this malware was detected more than 6000 times, though the reports came from just 150 unique users (from 9 February to 9 April)," he wrote in a blog post giving details of the malware.
"Of course, this is down to the nature of the malware distribution, but it also suggests a very painful experience for some users, who saw the same malware appear again and again in their network. More than half of the detections were observed targeting the Asian region."
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After this, a pop-up for a bogus update for the Chrome browser showed up on the user's mobile. Once the user clicked OK on this, the trojanised application was downloaded and installed.
The aim was to steal the user's credentials, including those for two-factor authentication, give the attacker control over the Android device in question.
Given the available clues, Ishimaru said that it looked like the attacker had a financial motive and was not overly sophisticated insofar as his/her technical skills were concerned.
"Our research revealed that the malware contains Android application IDs for popular mobile banking and game applications in South Korea," Ishimaru said.
"The malware is most prevalent in South Korea, and Korean is the first language targeted... Based on our findings, it appears the malicious app was originally distributed to South Korean targets. Support was then added for Traditional Chinese, English and Japanese, broadening its target base in the Asian region."
