Go delete it from your phone. It records you and sends the data to China
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| Image Google Play Store |
A somewhat shocking analysis was published by Kaspersky Lab researchers. It shows that in 2023 alone, Play Store users downloaded malicious applications over 600 million times. The most significant examples are given along the way.
The topic of malicious apps in the Play Store comes up regularly. But have you ever wondered how widespread this practice is? Kaspersky Lab decided to estimate it.
Based on previous reports and information apparently obtained from Google itself, it was calculated that from January to mid-November 2023 , approximately 3 million malicious applications appeared in the Play Store . They were downloaded a total of 600 million times . Here are the most interesting cases.
A threat that appears out of nowhere
The example given is the iRecorder Pro app , which first hit the store in September 2021 . At that time, however, she was a completely innocent dictaphone. Unexpectedly, after 11 months, it received an update that added the code of the AhMyth remote access Trojan .
Unfortunately, it took some time to detect the scam. This happened only in May 2023. Previously, over 50 thousand people were regularly recorded using a smartphone microphone, and the collected data was sent to a server in China.
Criminals set up dozens of developer accounts
Another case is a group of three photo editing apps: Beauty Slimming Photo Editor, Photo Effect Editor and GIF Camera Editor Pro . These tools infected the smartphone with the Fleckpe malware that tricked users into paying subscriptions , says Kaspersky.
Although they were frequently deleted from the Play Store, dishonest creators set up dozens of developer accounts and quickly replaced the deleted instances with new ones. It is estimated that over 620,000 people ultimately fell victim to this attack. people.
A sleeper agent on your phone
Yet another story involves the File Manager and File Recivery & Data Recovery file managers . The programs, created by Chinese developer Wang Tom, worked without any problems for some time. Only after a few weeks did they establish a connection to the remote server to transfer sensitive data such as contacts or location.
At the same time , they hid the icon , hoping that the user would forget about their presence in the system. They were also able to display a fake notification informing the user that they had been deleted due to an error.
If not you, they will rob advertisers
Kaspersky also lists dozens of titles that, while not directly stealing from the user , contributed to advertising fraud. This concerns a series of 43 applications detected in August 2023 that generated advertising traffic with the screen turned off.
The group of advertising frauds also includes countless Minecraft clones, such as Black Box Master Diamond , which has historically been downloaded over 10 million times. Likewise – a large set of applications that open ads in the background.\
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