4 dangerous Android malware apps were discovered on Google’s Play Store.
Even though an app looks legitimate, it doesn’t mean it won’t be malicious. We’ve seen these cases time and time again on the Google Play store, and this week yet another batch of malicious apps has been uncovered. For safety reasons, steer clear of any apps claiming to be a game or social media app.
Google has now closed the loophole and banned developers who used it from using its app distribution service. As a result, apps identified in the original story are no longer available on the Google Play Store.
On Tuesday, Malwarebytes Lab’s analysts highlighted a family of malicious Android apps that are infected with a hidden app. These four apps are from the developer Mobile Apps Group and have garnered over 1 million downloads in total.
The latest revelation of the data breach in Mobile apps Group stemmed from experts at Malwarebyes Labs. They state that it’s unclear if Google actually caught this developer, but notes that some versions of the popular Bluetooth Auto Connect app have been clean in the past. That suggests the developer has been caught and uploaded a clean version of the app before eventually loading it up with more malware.
Android malware apps on the Google Play store can infect devices without a single effort to protect users.
Remove these dangerous Android apps ASAP
Congratulations; you found four spyware apps on your device. Here are the apps to delete if they’re on your device:
Sentence rewriter.
When it comes to Bluetooth, I don’t want to wake up my battery by connecting to my headphones.
You can empower the staff of your business with a Bluetooth app that sends to employees and customers.
Driver: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB
New tool: smart switch
According to Malwarebytes, apps downloaded from the dark web don’t exhibit any malicious behavior in the first 72 hours of being downloaded. After the self-imposed delay, these apps start opening phishing sites in Chrome. Some of the sites are relatively harmless, generating revenue by having users click on ads. Other sites are more dangerous, attempting to trick users by telling them that they’ve been infected or need to update their device.
With the help of Malwarebytes, we can now understand how malware works. Allowing us to take steps to identify, contain, and remove it. Check out this blog post for more information.
Have you ever paid for your customers to use a service? Believe it or not, online services are great at stealing from their users. If you want to keep your customers secure, you’re going to have to prevent Chrome from opening with the latest site every time someone unlocks their device.
This is especially concerning because some of these apps have been uploaded by Mobile apps Group in the past. In other words, they aren’t always malicious and that’s apparently enough to keep them on Google Play. Again, all four of these apps are freely available on Google Play at the time of writing, so clearly, the system isn’t working.