Dangerous Malware Hidden in the Google Play Store Affects 1M Users

The Mobile Research Team at McAfee has identified a range of malicious apps on the Google Play Store that are disguised to help out uses. These applications appear as ‘cleaner’ apps that claim to delete junk fouls and maximise their device’s battery life. 

Although these apps seem to be safe, once installed by users, they automatically execute a malicious service which floods their victim’s devices with ads. Additionally, after being downloaded, these malware-ridden apps will automatically change their icon and name on user’s devices to ‘familiar’ apps such as Settings, making it incredibly hard for users to locate and delete.

An example of malicious apps on the Google Play Store (McAfee) 

Currently, it is estimated that between 100 thousand and 1 million users have already  downloaded these malicious apps from all across the globe. It’s important to keep in mind that as soon as a user downloads any of these malicious apps from the Google Play Store, their devices are instantly infected. Therefore, we advise users to be cautious when downloading apps from the store and to avoid any that look suspicious 

To prevent more users falling victim to these malware attacks, McAfee has released a list of compromised apps. We’ve summarised them below – 

If you suspect that your device has already been infected with malware from one of these apps, then we recommend that you use a reputable antivirus software to safety remove it. We’ll already handpicked the best antivirus apps for Windows, macOS, and Android in 2022!

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