It's not clear how the apps slipped through, but Google has since taken them down. We've asked the company for comment.

The findings are slightly disconcerting, at the least. While it's not unheard of for malware to slip into Google Play, it seldom comes back without at least some kind of substantial modification (such as a new strain of the malware itself) -- in theory, a name change shouldn't be enough to do the trick. However the malware got through, this is a not-so-subtle reminder that malware isn't necessarily gone just because it's been removed from Google's app portal.