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Dozens of apps on the Google Play platform have been flagged as malicious following a real-time, behaviour-based investigation.
Cyber security company Bitdefender has identified a new malware campaign on the Google Play Store, flagging 35 malicious apps using false pretexts to lure users.
According to Bitdefender, the apps hide their presence on the device by renaming themselves and changing icons, before serving aggressive ad campaigns.
“One of the ways cyber criminals monetise their presence on Google Play is to serve ads to their victims,” the Bitdefender report noted.
“While this may sound diminutive, these ads served to victims are disrupting the usage experience and can link directly to malware.”
Unlike legitimate apps, the malicious platforms display ads through their own framework, allowing them to service other types of malware to user.
“Most of the time, users can choose to delete the application if they don't like it. But these new malicious apps trick victims into installing them, only to change their name and icons and even take some extra steps to conceal their presence on the device,” Bitdefender added,
“Users can still delete them at will, but the developers make it more difficult to find them on the affected devices.
“While all of the detected apps are clearly malicious, the developers were able to upload them to the Google Play Store, offer them to users and even push updates that made the apps better at hiding on devices.”
Some of the more popular apps identified with over 100,000 downloads include:
Bitdefender reportedly identified the malicious apps using a new real-time behavioural technology designed to detect malicious practices.
This new technology is slowly being rolled out to customers and is set to become available in the coming months.
[Related: Cyber security companies impersonated in call-back malware campaign]
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