• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
iGuRu

iGuRu

Real-time Technology News. Opinions & Tweaks

  • / news
  • / tools
  • / tweaks
  • / dummies
  • / opinions
  • / support
  • / yourpost
home / News / Play Store 205 malware with 32 millions of downloads

Play Store 205 malware with 32 millions of downloads

02/08/2019 09:44 by giorgos

It looks like Google is losing the battle against Android malware. The company hosted more than 205 malicious apps in the Play Store in July alone, which were downloaded a total of 32 million times in the last month alone.

The bulk of the suspicious software - 188 applications - contained hidden ads, amounting to 19,2 million installations. The remaining applications contained payroll and ad scams, fake antivirus tools, adware, and software with built-in backdoors, according to data. disposed of ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko.

play store 1024x460 - Play Store 205 malicious applications with 32 million downloads

Interestingly, although there were only three paid scam applications, they recorded one-third of all downloads with 12 million installations.

EA3ndv0XUAACVqw - Play Store 205 malware with 32 million downloads

Hidden ads may not sound so bad, but Stefanko explains that it is a very aggressive adware.

At startup, these apps hide their icons from the home screen, and have no functionality other than showing full-screen ads to the user.

Stefanko examines malicious activity in the Play Store every month.

All of these apps and numbers are based on surveys, blog reports, and tweets posted in July 2019 by the infosec community.

Of course, this is not the first time that the Google Play Store has not been able to curb the spread of malware.

A few weeks ago a was published study from the University of Sydney who concluded that the Play Store is full of suspicious applications.

"We were able to find 2.040 possible fake files containing malware in a total of 49.608 applications that look like one of the top 10.000 popular applications in the Google Play store," the researchers said.

Although the company removed more than 700.000 malicious applications from Mountain View last year as part of its virus protection efforts with Play Protect, the malware is still finding its way to Android devices.

In 2017, AV-TEST reported that Google Play Playct itself successfully detected only 66% of suspicious applications in tests.

So although we often advise Android users not to download applications from third-party sources to avoid malware, unfortunately, it seems that attachment to the Play Store is not always secure.

________________________

  • Windows PC get updates from your Android device
  • VLC easy conversion of video and audio files
  • AV TEST: Windows Defender one of the best antivirus
Play Store 205 malware with 32 millions of downloads was last modified: 2 August, 2019, 9: 44 am by giorgos

spread the news

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Printing
  • Email

Read them Technology News from all over the world, with the validity of iGuRu.gr

Follow us on Google News


Competition: Newstag: adware, backdoors, Blogs, g, Play Store, tweets

You May Also Like

Remove 164 Android apps from the Google Play Store
hijackthis: Find malware, adware and other security threats
Google Play Store Do you trust Google Play Protect?

About Us giorgos

George still wonders what he's doing here ...

Previous Post: « Ransomware for Android spreads massively via SMS
Next Post: Krita 4.2.5 Open Source image editing application »

Reader Interactions

Comments
  1. Nick

    04/08/2019 22:28

    OK, good article, but what helps us when you don't tell us WHAT are these applications? :-)

    Απάντηση
    • Nick

      05/08/2019 14:47

      To tell the truth, I began to wonder what George was doing here. :-)

      Απάντηση
      • giorgos

        06/08/2019 19:30

        good :)

        Απάντηση

Comment Policy:

IGuRu.gr does not publish the comments immediately. Malicious comments, comments that include ads, or comments that are offensive are deleted without notice. We do not adopt the opinions expressed by our readers.
Your comments will be displayed after approval by the administrators


Leave your comment
Ακύρωση απάντησης

Your email address is not published. Τα υποχρεωτικά πεδία σημειώνονται με *

 

 © 2021 · iGuRu.gr · ☢ · Keep It Simple Stupid Genesis theme

about  ·   get in touch  ·  rss  ·  sitemap  ·  cough

loading Cancel
Could not post post - check your email address!
Email verification failed, please try again
Your blog can not post posts via email.