Google Play infected with rare power adware

The Check Point publisher has discovered that adware has become embedded in hundreds of Android applications and the danger is that downloads are in the tens of millions.

More than 150 million downloads It’s enormous! It is the accumulation of 200 applications available on Google Play and in which was adware , this software advertising installed without users’ knowledge. In this case, it is the publisher Check Point who discovered it and millions of owners of smartphones as Android have therefore installed without their knowledge.

Called SimBad, this software displayed ads inside the applications, but it was only a decoy … What we discovered the experts of Check Point is that this little software created especially a fault inside the downloaded application (games, utilities …) to install viruses! As the application has already been installed, it is impossible to detect them upstream, and even more difficult to remove it since the malware removes its icon even though it runs in the background. His role: visit sites Web where its advertising banners are found to accumulate income.

An open door to bigger dangers?

As soon as Google became aware of the deception, the violated applications were removed from Google Play. The problem is that the app store can not remotely uninstall or disable applications, so it’s up to each user to uninstall them. Check Point’s other concern is that this “back door ” could allow even more threatening viruses that would not seek to accumulate revenue but to hack personal data.

Contacted by our colleagues at TechCrunch, Google did not comment on this discovery or the potential danger. However, Check Point has released the list of affected apps so that users can uninstall them.