Android Adware Hits to Google Play Store Once Again

Android Adware Hits to Google Play Store Once Again



ESET has uncovered another campaign targeting the Google Play Store, one through which attackers once again masqueraded adware inside legitimate-looking apps.

The technique is not new by any stretch of the imagination, and cyber-crooks aren't looking like they'll try to change their MO too much in the upcoming future.

Just like many times before, apps that leverage on the success of other apps, usually tend to contain something dubious, and so was the case of three apps: cheats for Pou, Cheats for Subway, and Guide for SubWay, as ESET reports.

These three apps contained a malware which would show fullscreen ad interstitials at every 30 or 45 minutes.

The apps included various protection measures to allow it to pass through Google's Bouncer app inspection system, and also to prevent the malware component from running inside emulated environments.

ESET's researchers managed to fool it anyway, by using a simple trick of rebooting the emulated environment. This revealed the malware component and allowed ESET engineers to track its behavior so it could identify similar infections.

The three apps were reported to Google's engineers, and the three infringing apps were taken down from the Play Store.

Below is a simple image to show you how to remove the apps from your Android device if you were careless enough to install them.


How to download

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