Scammers are using Play Store apps to serve ads that nobody can escape

guest · Dec 20, 2019

Scammers are using Play Store apps to serve ads that nobody can escape
December 19, 2019
https://www.cyberscoop.com/play-store-adware-white-ops/

A sneaky network of more than 100 Android applications is allowing fraudsters to make money by pushing pervasive advertisements to users’ devices, according to new cybersecurity findings.
The device owners aren’t the real victims, even though they’re being exploited.

More than 100 applications with some 4.6 million downloads from the Google Play Store include malicious code that enables the bogus advertising network, according to research published Thursday by the bot detection firm White Ops.

Android subscribers who downloaded these apps, some of which still existed on the Play Store at press time, believed they were installing programs that would predict their fortune, play games, take selfies or remove bugs. But the apps also abused their access to inundate the devices with advertisements that could be tracked but often couldn’t be seen.

“The code has aggressive persistence mechanisms,” said Inna Vasilyeva, a threat intelligence analyst at White Ops. “Once we started looking into one application, we could see that it was related to what a lot of other apps were doing.”
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This malicious activity was made possible by two code libraries, which White Ops dubbed Soraka and Sogo.

The apps also use AppsFlyer, a framework for mobile attribution and marketing analytics.
It’s a combination that enables the apps to remove a background notification service meant to prohibit fraud activity when a phone is powered down, and schedule ads to start appearing seconds after those anti-fraud measures are disabled.
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White Ops: Bringing Starchild Down to Earth: Soraka SDK

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