Google Play

Pierluigi Paganini November 30, 2024
15 SpyLoan Android apps found on Google Play had over 8 million installs

McAfee researchers discovered 15 SpyLoan Android apps on Google Play with a combined total of over 8 million installs. 15 SpyLoan apps with a combined total of 8M+ installs were found on Google Play, targeting users in South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. SpyLoan apps exploit social engineering to gain sensitive user data and excessive […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 29, 2024
Google prevented 2.28 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play in 2023

Google announced they have prevented 2.28 million policy-violating apps from being published in the official Google Play. Google announced that in 2023, they have prevented 2.28 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play. This amazing result was possible thanks to the introduction of enhanced security features, policy updates, and advanced machine learning and […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 11, 2023
Evil Telegram campaign: Trojanized Telegram apps found on Google Play

Evil Telegram: a Trojanized version of the Telegram app was spotted on the Google Play Store, Kaspersky researchers reported. Researchers from Kaspersky discovered several Telegram mods on the Google Play Store that contained spyware, the campaign was tracked as Evil Telegram. One of the apps was downloaded more than ten million times before it was […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 30, 2023
Chinese GREF APT distributes spyware via trojanized Signal and Telegram apps on Google Play and Samsung Galaxy stores

China-linked APT group GREF is behind a malware campaign distributing spyware via trojanized Signal and Telegram apps on Google Play ESET researchers uncovered a cyberespionage campaign carried out by the China-linked APT group known as GREF that is distributing spyware via trojanized Signal and Telegram apps on Google Play and Samsung Galaxy stores. The malware […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 08, 2023
43 Android apps in Google Play with 2.5M installs loaded ads when a phone screen was off

Experts found 43 Android apps in Google Play with 2.5 million installs that displayed advertisements while a phone’s screen was off. Recently, researchers from McAfee’s Mobile Research Team discovered 43 Android apps in Google Play with 2.5 million installs that loaded advertisements while a phone’s screen was off. The experts pointed out that this behavior […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 09, 2023
Two spyware sending data of more than 1.5M users to China were found in Google Play Store

Two apps on the Google Play Store with more than 1.5 million downloads have been discovered spying on users and sending data to China. Researchers from cybersecurity firm Pradeo discovered two malicious apps on Google Play hinding spyware and spying on up to 1.5 million users. Both applications are file management apps from the same […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 27, 2020
Google removes a set of 21 malicious apps from the Play Store

Google has removed 21 malicious apps from the official Play Store because they were found to serve intrusive and annoying ads. Google has removed 21 new malicious apps from the official Play Store because they were found displaying intrusive ads. The following malicious apps were spotted by researchers from cybersecurity firm Avast: Shoot Them Crush […]

Pierluigi Paganini February 13, 2020
Google Play Protect prevented 1.9 billion malware installs from Third-party stores in 2019

Google Play Protect now scans over 100 billion applications on Android devices every day, these amazing figures were disclosed by Google. In May 2017, Google introduced a security defense system called Google Play Protect to protect the devices running its mobile OS. Google aims at monitoring the behavior of the apps and the detection of the malicious […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 20, 2019
Two selfie Android adware apps with 1.5M+ downloads removed from Play Store

Experts at Wandera’s threat research team discovered two adware apps on the Google Play Store that were downloaded 1.5M+ times. Researchers at Wandera discovered two adware selfie filter camera apps on the Google Play that were pushing ads and that can record audio. The bad news is that the two apps were downloaded 1.5M+ times. […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 22, 2019
App tainted with Ahmyst Open-source spyware appeared on Google Play Store twice

ESET experts discovered that an Android app infected with AhMyth open-source RAT has bypassed the security of Google Play twice over two weeks. The popular malware researcher Lukas Stefanko from ESET discovered that a malicious spyware, built on the AhMyth open-source espionage tool, was uploaded on Google Play twice over two weeks, bypassing Google security […]