Google Play Store is still a virus sink and this is the proof
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Nothing, there's no way. Google continues to sneak applications with malicious files to the greater misfortune of the user who trusts them. And that the Google repository itself has an antivirus that scans the utilities that we download. But nothing, there is no way. Day after day we witness a new investigation, and subsequent discovery, of tools that can pose a danger to those who install them. Yesterday we found some applications that charged the user inordinate amounts of money for functions that others offered for free.And today it is the turn of the company Symantec Threat Intelligence that has just discovered, and denounced Google, the inclusion of 25 applications available for download in the Play Store.
Viruses continue to inhabit Play Store apps
This group of applications has already been removed from the Play Store and they worked as follows: the user downloaded and installed it on his phone. At that time, the app was not appearing on the home screen of mobiles, starting to show on-screen ads even though the apps were closed. Other apps could be using this same method and still running wild throughout the app store. The app would start delivering these ads when the user first launched them. At that time, the tool downloaded a configuration file that activated the malware, this being an essential procedure so that the security mechanisms of the Play Store do not detect fraud.
The only goal of these malicious applications, of course, is financial gain, which is achieved at the user's expense without their knowledge. In addition, the fact that applications, once downloaded, did not appear with the rest on the home screen could cause the user to forget that they installed them , not knowing where all those ads that are invading your mobile come from.
25 infected apps delivering fraudulent ads
The 25 reported applications operated under 22 different developer accounts and all contained similar code to bypass the repository's security. These applications would have been downloaded more than 2 million times in the last five months, date on which all of them appeared.That there are 22 different developers may be part of the deception: that the programming code is so similar between them gives clues that it could be a single organized group or, at least, that they would all be working using the same source code.
All these applications also had another thing in common: they all belonged to the photo editing section or the world of Fashion. There are even examples of blatant plagiarism. One of them is a copy of ‘Photo Blur‘, a legitimate and safe application, which appeared on the Google Play Store under the same developer account as this one. Symantec researchers concluded that "the developer deliberately creates a malicious copy of the trending app in the hope that users will download the malicious version."
Although the applications have already been uninstalled, many others may be using the same procedure to launch unwanted ads so be careful what you do. you download to install.
