Android users urged to delete malicious apps

Google’s protection service had been deleting most of the apps due to their malicious nature

Android users are being urged to delete some popular apps from their phones after Google discovered malicious apps in the playstore.

Google removed 38 apps from the playstore after discovering the software had the ability to bombard users with unwanted adverts and intrusive browser redirects, which would take Android users to websites without them ever clicking on a link.

The discovery of these malicious and adware-packed apps was made by the team at WhiteOps, which believes a criminal group were behind the threat.

The group first started uploading the software, designed to mainly target the beauty and selfie market, to Google’s Play Store back in January 2019 – reports the Daily Express.

Google’s protection service had been deleting most of the apps a few weeks after they were uploaded due to their malicious nature.

In fact, according to WhiteOps most of these applications lasted just 17 days before being blocked.

But despite their short life on the Play Store they still managed to amass over 500,000 downloads which makes the attack extremely serious.

In September 2019 the criminals changed tactics.

The new threats were made possible by either hiding the malicious code or deleting it completely – which meant they were able to bypass Google’s security.

But at any moment it seems the nasty adware could then be re-enabled via a simple update which is why Google has now removed all of the apps from its marketplace despite many of them appearing to be clean.

A total of 38 applications have now been deleted from the Play Store but during their life on the online store, they have been downloaded a total of 20 million times.

In a post on its website, WhiteOps explained: The White Ops Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team recently identified and tracked a fraud operation that rendered fraudulent advertising in users’ devices. These apps amassed more than 20 million downloads.

What these apps all have in common – besides their fraudulent tactics – is their focus on beauty. Most purport to be selfie apps that add beauty filters to users’ pictures, while at the same time showing ads out of context and making it nearly impossible to remove the apps themselves, it said.

In the time since that first app was published, the fraudsters published a new app every 11 days on average. And on average, those apps were pulled down from the Play Store 17 days later. These numbers tell a story of a cat and mouse game, in which the Play Store hunts down the fraudster and keeps them in check by removing fraudulent apps as quickly as they’re discovered.

The fraudster likely developed a more robust mechanism to avoid detection and removal. A batch of 15 apps, all published after September 2019, had a much slower removal rate using those new techniques, it said.

Google continues to improve its app security and things are getting better for Android fans but it still taking precautions before downloading anything on to your phone.