Samsung's official Android app store, the Galaxy Store, has had an infiltration of riskware apps

guest · Dec 28, 2021

Riskware Android streaming apps found on Samsung's Galaxy store
December 28, 2021

Samsung's official Android app store, called the Galaxy Store, has had an infiltration of riskware apps that triggered multiple Play Protect warnings on people's devices.

As reported first by Android Police, the malicious apps mimic ShowBox, a pirate app that went bust in 2018, after a coalition of movie studios managed to identify its operator and filed lawsuits against him.
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ShowBox and its "sibling" MovieBox enabled users to access copyright-protected movies and TV shows without paying for a membership subscription to the legitimate broadcasters.

Scammers bet on the popularity of the pirate app, and indeed their cloned apps enjoyed a welcoming reception by the Samsung user community.
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Infringing and risky
According to mobile security analyst "linuxct", these apps trigger a Google Play Protect warning because the apps request access to risky permissions that could allow the installation of malware on the Android device.

If the user grants those requests, the apps are allowed to access contact lists, call logs, execute code, fetch malware payloads click on ads, and more.
Multiple anti-virus engines on VirusTotal detect samples of these apps as riskware, trojan, ad clicker, or generic malware.
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According to Android Police, at least some of these apps did actually offer the promised pirate functionality at some point.

I gave Huawei [***] for this, gonna do it to Samsung too.

Samsung is hosting literal malware on the Galaxy Store. Google's anti-virus protection software, built into Play Services, stops the install.
I've found at least 5 of these apps in a row on the Galaxy Store. pic.twitter.com/LiiDJtGwmb
— Max Weinbach (@MaxWinebach) December 27, 2021
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Android Police: Samsung's Galaxy Store is distributing apps that could infect phones with malware

Potentially fake 'Showbox' movie piracy apps trigger a Play Protect warning, and an investigation indicates they could download malware
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Samsung's official Android app store, the Galaxy Store, has had an infiltration of riskware apps

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