22 apps with 2 million+ Google Play downloads had a malicious backdoor

guest · Dec 7, 2018

22 apps with 2 million+ Google Play downloads had a malicious backdoor
Device-draining downloader used for ad fraud could have recovered other malicious files
December 6, 2018
https://arstechnica.com/information...-22-backdoored-apps-with-2-million-downloads/

The 22 rogue titles included Sparkle Flashlight, a flashlight app that had been downloaded more than 1 million times since it entered Google Play sometime in 2016 or 2017, antivirus provider Sophos said in a blog post published Thursday.

"Andr/Clickr-ad," as Sophos has dubbed the family of apps, automatically started and ran even after a user force-closed them, functions that caused the apps to consume huge amounts of bandwidth and drain batteries.

The modules caused the phones to click on huge numbers of links that hosted fraudulent apps. To prevent users from suspecting their phones were infected, the apps displayed the ads in a window that was zero pixels high and zero wide.
To ensure maximum profit, Andr/Clickr-ad apps were programmed to run automatically each time an infected phone was rebooted, by using a BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast.
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22 apps with 2 million+ Google Play downloads had a malicious backdoor

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