Friday, February 7, 2025
HomeAdwareBeware!! 29 Malicious Apps Found on Google Play with Over 10 Million+...

Beware!! 29 Malicious Apps Found on Google Play with Over 10 Million+ Downloads

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

Google has removed 29 malicious adware apps that have more than 10 million downloads from the Google play store. These malicious apps are listed as camera filter, makeup apps, and apps used to create multiple accounts.

Among other apps “Multi app multiple accounts simultaneously” is the most downloaded app, it alone has more than 5 million downloads. The clear purpose of the authors behind these apps is to make money by infecting the user’s device.

According to quick heal report, the malicious apps are separated into two categories, 24 in HiddAd category and 5 Apps listed under Adware category.

24 HiddAd Apps

Once these apps get installed in the device, after the first launch it creates a shortcut on the home screen and hides the icon from the home screen to avoid getting uninstalled.

These apps launch full-screen ads on the device screen and they continue to display the ads even the device in an idle state or the app is closed.

Researchers from Quickheal observed that HiddAd Apps has the following code to display the ads randomly in a certain time interval, based on the app installation time.

To hide the app icons they use setComponentEnabledSetting method, this is the package used to enable or disable any application’s components.

5 Adware Apps

These apps fall into the general adware category, they continue to show heavy Advertisement on user’s mobile, interrupt workflow, drain out the battery and even brick the devices.

One of such adware observed by Quick Heal shows various functions including flash-light, gallery, etc. But once these apps are opened they continue to show full-screen ads without options to close.

Even if the apps are closed they continue to re-open immediately and it cause DoS like situation, it won’t allow users to perform any other task.

Malicious App list Credits: Quick heal

This adware is hard to detect, by having an Ad Blocker tool in place, you can stop these annoying ads, sometimes these ads may also result in malware installation.

Earlier this week 25 Malicious Apps has been removed from the official Google Play.

You can follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook for daily Cybersecurity and hacking news updates.

Gurubaran
Gurubaran
Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.

Latest articles

Dell Update Manager Plugin Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data

Dell Technologies has issued a security advisory (DSA-2025-047) to address a vulnerability in the Dell Update...

DeepSeek iOS App Leaks Data to ByteDance Servers Without Encryption

DeepSeek iOS app—a highly popular AI assistant recently crowned as the top iOS app...

Critical Flaws in HPE Aruba ClearPass Expose Systems to Arbitrary Code Execution

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has issued a high-priority security bulletin addressing multiple vulnerabilities in...

Splunk Introduces “DECEIVE” an AI-Powered Honeypot to Track Cyber Threats

Splunk has unveiled DECEIVE (DECeption with Evaluative Integrated Validation Engine), an innovative, AI-augmented honeypot that mimics...

Supply Chain Attack Prevention

Free Webinar - Supply Chain Attack Prevention

Recent attacks like Polyfill[.]io show how compromised third-party components become backdoors for hackers. PCI DSS 4.0’s Requirement 6.4.3 mandates stricter browser script controls, while Requirement 12.8 focuses on securing third-party providers.

Join Vivekanand Gopalan (VP of Products – Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface) as they break down these compliance requirements and share strategies to protect your applications from supply chain attacks.

Discussion points

Meeting PCI DSS 4.0 mandates.
Blocking malicious components and unauthorized JavaScript execution.
PIdentifying attack surfaces from third-party dependencies.
Preventing man-in-the-browser attacks with proactive monitoring.

More like this

Dell Update Manager Plugin Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data

Dell Technologies has issued a security advisory (DSA-2025-047) to address a vulnerability in the Dell Update...

DeepSeek iOS App Leaks Data to ByteDance Servers Without Encryption

DeepSeek iOS app—a highly popular AI assistant recently crowned as the top iOS app...

Critical Flaws in HPE Aruba ClearPass Expose Systems to Arbitrary Code Execution

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has issued a high-priority security bulletin addressing multiple vulnerabilities in...