Around 60 apps from the Google Play Store included malicious software, which caused victims’ devices to click on ads in order to artificially inflating the traffic to those ads, thing that led to scammers making even more money than before.
According to some research, the security firm Check Point Technologies talks about how frauds use the network of apps – that was downloaded more than 1 million times – in order to take advantage of the trust of the users and make some money. But this was quite different than the tactics of other frauds because this one was meant for children. 24 out of the 60 apps were for children. Games with titles like “Cooking Delicious” and “Let Me Go,” tempted kids into downloading them, and then opening the dangerous tool.
These apps also included “Tekya,” which is a very famous clicker malware. Besides the kids’ apps, Tekya was also found in cooking, calculator, translation, and other utility apps. Google removed all of them this month, according to a report.
Aviran Hazum, the manager of Check Point Technologies, stated: “To us, the amount of applications targeted and the sheer number of downloads that the actor successfully infiltrated is staggering.”
Google has also hired mobile security firms in order to get rid of these dangerous apps. Developers are also working on using a range of tactics in order to slip past security checkpoints. The thing is that, sometimes, attackers encrypt the malicious functionality in their apps, which makes it even more difficult for experts to detect, or they simply activate ads that violate all the Play Store policies on a time delay.
