Bitdefender warns {that a} main advert fraud marketing campaign within the Google Play Retailer resulted in additional than 60 million downloads of malicious apps.
The attackers managed to put not less than 331 malicious apps within the Play Retailer. Along with displaying full-screen advertisements, a number of the apps additionally directed customers to phishing websites designed to reap their credentials.
“Most purposes first grew to become energetic on Google Play in Q3 2024,” Bitdefender says. “After additional evaluation, we noticed that older ones that had been printed earlier had been initially benign and didn’t comprise malware elements. The malicious conduct was added afterward, beginning with variations from the start of Q3.
To be clear, that is an energetic marketing campaign. The most recent malware printed within the Google Play Retailer went reside within the first week of March, 2025. Once we completed the investigation, per week later, 15 purposes had been nonetheless accessible for obtain on Google Play.”
The apps posed as standard utility companies, akin to QR scanners, funds planners, well being apps, and plenty of others. Most of the apps
“One solution to maintain a malicious app hidden from the consumer is to cover the icon – a conduct that’s now not allowed within the Android OS,” the researchers write. “We discover that attackers used a number of approaches to unravel this drawback. The most well-liked and attention-grabbing one can be seemingly probably the most environment friendly.
The app comes with the Launcher Exercise (e.g., that the consumer sees and clicks on) disabled by default. Afterwards, by abusing the startup mechanism offered by the content material supplier, the samples use native code to allow the launcher, which is probably going carried out as a further method to evade detection.”
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