Check your phone! Dozens of dangerous apps spotted
Earlier this month, several malicious Android apps appeared on the Google Play Store. Most contained a banking Trojan that steals your financial information and other personal details. While those are no longer available, more are now taking their place.
Malware comes in different forms, and cybercriminals continually improve technology for their attacks. This makes it more difficult for companies like Google and Apple to find and eliminate threats.
Read on to see how the latest group of malicious apps work and what you can do to stay safe.
Here’s the backstory
Cybersecurity researchers from Bitdefender recently found more than 35 additional bad apps. Many of which are spreading adware. This malware version infects your device and serves you with ads, earning money for the criminals behind the attack.
The apps have a combined total of over 2 million downloads. One thing that makes some of these bad apps more dangerous is that once you download them, they change icons and names, making them difficult to spot and remove. They then begin serving aggressive advertising.
As Bitdefender explains, criminals use this common technique to “monetize their presence” on the Google Play Store.
But advertising isn’t the only problem with these apps. “Many legitimate apps offer ads to their users, but these ones show ads through their own framework, which means they can also serve other types of malware to their victims,” Bitdefender says.
Here is the list of bad apps to avoid:
- GPS Location Maps
- Personality Charging Show
- Image Warp Camera
- Animated Sticker Master
- GPS Location Finder
- Walls Light – Wallpaper pack
- Big Emoji – Keyboard 5.0 APK Download
- Grad Wallpapers – 3D Backdrops
- Engine Wallpapers Live & 3D
- Stock Wallpapers
- EffectMania
- Art Filter – Deep Photoeffect
- Fast Emoji Keyboard APK
- Create Sticker for Whatsapp 2.0 APK
- Math Solver APK – Camera Helper
- Photopix Effects – Art Filter 2.0 APK
- Led Theme – Colorful Keyboard 2.0 APK
- Keyboard – Funny Emoji,Sticker 2.0 APK
- Smart Wifi 1.0 APKs
- My GPS Location 1.0 APKs
- Image Warp Camera 1.0 APKs
- HD christmas fantasy girl wallpapers
- Cat Simulator 1.0 APKs
- Smart QR Creator 1.0 APKs
- Colorize Old Photo-Asia
- GPS Location Finder 1.0 APKs
- Girls Art Wallpaper 1.0 APKs
- Smart QR Scanner 1.0 APK
- GPS Location Maps 1.0 APKs Download
- Volume Control 1.0 APKs
- Secret Horoscope 1.0 APKs
- Smart GPS Location 1.0 APKs
- Animated Sticker Master 1.0 APKs
- Pika! Charging show – charging animation
- Sleep Sounds 1.0 APKs
- QR Creator 1.0 APKs
- Media Volume Slider 1.0 APKs
- Phi 4K Wallpaper – Anime HD 2.0 APK
Digging a bit deeper, researchers found that the GPS Location Maps app quickly changed its name and icon to resemble the Settings app on Android. On some testing devices, the app requested permissions to bypass the battery optimization feature and start foreground services notifications.
So, not only does it serve you with lots of advertising, but it also prevents your phone from stopping the app, which drains your battery.
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