![]() Even if the downside is simply unwanted ads, the fact is that malicious apps can often be hiding more dangers than that. Don’t download trivial utility apps because they seem nifty and free-they’re free for a reason. ![]() Ultimately, the usual advice applies here. If any of those apps use the generic Android icon (which looks like a little greenish-blue Android silhouette) and have generic-sounding names (‘Back Up,’ ‘Update,’ ‘Time Zone Service’) tap the generic icon and then tap ‘Force Stop’ followed by ‘Uninstall’.” Real system apps won’t offer an ‘uninstall’ option but will have a ‘disable’ option instead. The most recently opened apps appear in a list at the top of this page. The package names of the 15 apps are here:Īndrew Brandt, a principal researcher at Sophos, warns that “while these apps have been removed from the Google Play Store, there may be others we haven’t yet discovered that do the same thing.”īrandt also explains that if uses suspect an app might be hiding, or to check against the published list, “tap Settings, then Apps & Notifications. ![]() Sophos says that Google was notified about the apps and they seem to have been removed-the underlying threat and coding techniques will remain in other as yet unidentified apps in the store and the myriad apps likely still to come. Sophos believes that similarities in coding structure and user interfaces suggests this batch of apps might all be related, despite appearing to come from different publishers. And, arguably, the most worrying finding is that all 15 apps appeared this year-that means there are still gaping holes in Play Store security and there are adware factories churning out such apps and pushing them into the public domain. ![]() Once installed, the apps use innocuous names to ensure they don’t trigger suspicions. The mindset to download an app of unknown provenance for such a delicate purpose we won’t get into-the warnings here basically go without saying. “Most ironically,” Sophos reports, one of the malicious apps is designed “to scrub your phone of private data.” You couldn’t make this up. ![]() As so often with adware apps, most are designed around trivial utilities-QR readers and image editors, for example. ![]()
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