Millions Downloaded Adware infected apps from the Google Play Store

Millions Downloaded Adware infected apps from the Google Play Store

Millions of people are affected by downloading adware infected apps from the Google Play Store.

Recently, security researchers have found lots of Android apps in the Google Play Store, which are having adware serving ads to the unsuspecting victims. These apps are using adware as part of the money-making plan.

The Anti-Virus ESET Security researchers group has found 42 apps that have millions of downloads contain adware. These 42 apps have been downloaded more than 8 million times since the apps are debuted on 2018 July. That means millions of people are unnoticed fall into the Apps Adware trap.

All these affected 42 apps look so like typical, apps, but they act like slow poison and sneaky as well. Once users installed the adware infected app, then the app will serve “full screen” ads on the device display at different intervals.

Quite often, these apps will delete their shortcut icons, making it more difficult for the users to remove those apps.

These adware infected apps can also clown or mimic your Facebook and Google’s apps as well to avoid suspicion. These will detract from the actual ad-serving app and keep the app on the device for longer periods.

Adware infected apps will run in the background, and will send back the data about the user’s device – This includes which apps are installed, or whether device allows apps from non-app store sources and more. If they know this information, then this could be used to install more malicious software on your device.

ESET’s Security Researcher Lukas Stefanko says that ” Adware functionality is almost the same in all the 42 apps they have analysed so far.”

The ESET Security researchers also found that these apps could check if a device were connected to Google’s servers or other primary servers to prevent detection.

If the infected apps think that Google Play security mechanisms are testing them, then they will not trigger the payload of the adware. This is what is happening in these infected apps. That’s why they have been undetected these many years.

If you want to know the names of these apps means you have to head over to the ESAT data. Some of the infected apps which I am talking about now is Video Download Master, Ringtone Maker Pro, Save Insta, Tank Classic and more. All these apps have five million downloads each which is a massive number.

The ESAT Security Researchers are saying that a Vietnamese college student may be behind these adware campaigns.

At present, Google has found those apps and removed all the offending apps from the Google Play Store. But, the researchers are warned that there are many more third-party apps stores which are still having these apps.

One of the spokespeople has confirmed that all the apps have been removed. But Google and other tech giants do not comment on this issue as usual. We even didn’t get the acknowledgement of their removal officially, but in the background, Google has removed them.