Antivirus Editor Dr. Web has revealed a new list of malware disguised as Android apps. Most of them have now been removed from the Play Store, after accumulating 10 million downloads. If you have installed one of the apps mentioned in this article, we highly recommend that you remove it immediately.
Despite increasingly effective safety nets, it is not uncommon for Google to allow malware to infiltrate the Play Store. The most annoying thing is when the latter sometimes stays for several people on the platform. In fact, it regularly happens that an app that actually camouflages malware has many thousands, even millions of downloads, despite the negative reviews and ratings left by victims.
Regularly, cyber security experts provide lists of these fake apps to avoid at all costs, and today it comes from antivirus publisher Dr. Web. Moreover, a nice boost, because today these apps accumulate no less than 10 million downloads. We find everything in the collection: photomontage applications, keyboards, customizable wallpapers, and so on.
If most of them offer the promised features, this is only an excuse to install malware on the victim’s smartphone. Some of them contain, for example, Joker, a massive malware that has been roaming on Android smartphones since 2019 capable of making its victim sign up for premium subscriptions. Still others allow hackers to retrieve their targets’ social media credentials.
To stay incognito, these apps hide under another name and icon once installed, mimicking the functions of a smartphone system. Then they ask for permission to run in the background to continue scanning the device. Alerted, Google has removed the majority of this malware from the Play Store. However, three of them are still available at this writing. Here is the full list of apps to uninstall:
- 4 K Wallpapers Auto Changer
- Call Skins — Caller Themes
- Caller Theme
- Caller Theme
- CallMe Phone Themes
- Cashe Cleaner
- Emoji Keyboard: Stickers & GIF
- Fancy Charging
- FastCleaner: Cashe Cleaner
- Funny Caller
- Funny Wallpapers – Live Screen
- InCall: Contact Background
- MyCall – Call Personalization
- Neon Theme – Android Keyboard
- Neon Theme Keyboard
- NewScrean: 4D Wallpapers
- Notes — reminders and lists
- Photo & Exif Editor
- Photo Editor & Background Eraser
- Photo Editor – Design Maker
- Photo Editor – Filters Effects
- Photo Editor : Blur Image
- Photo Editor : Cut, Paste
- Photo Editor: Art Filters
- Photo Editor : Beauty Filter
- Photo Editor : Retouch & Cutout
- Photo Filters & Effects
- Stock Wallpapers & Backgrounds