Tekya Clicker Malware Hides in 56 Apps that Downloaded 1 Million Times Worldwide From Google Play

Google implements a number of ways to filter the malicious apps getting into the play store, but still, attackers continue to find ways to infiltrate the app store and infect user devices.

Security researchers from Check Point identified 56 malicious apps in play store that aimed to commit mobile fraud with new malware families dubbed ‘Tekya’.

Tekya Malware Play Store

The malware aims to steal user data such as credentials, emails, text messages, and geographical location.

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The Tekya malware founded to be hidden with 56 apps that were downloaded more than 1 million times worldwide. Out of 56 apps, 24 of the infected apps targeting apps used by kids such as puzzles to racing games.

Researchers found that “Tekya malware obfuscates native code to avoid detection by Google Play Protect and utilizes the ‘MotionEvent’ mechanism in Android to imitate the user’s actions and generate clicks”.

MotionEvent is a mechanism in an Android device that used to report movements such as a mouse, pen, finger, trackball events.

With this campaign, attackers cloned the legitimate versions of the app and host fake versions with malware embedded.

Once this malware gets installed in the device, a receiver gets registered and multiple actions performed in the device.

The receiver “us.pyumo.TekyaReceiver” get’s registered to perform the following actions

‘BOOT_COMPLETED’ to allow code running at device startup (“cold” startup)
‘USER_PRESENT’ in order to detect when the user is actively using the device
‘QUICKBOOT_POWERON’ to allow code running after device restart

The main goal of the malware is to click on the ads banner from agencies such as Google’s AdMob, AppLovin, Facebook, and Unity.

Here you can find the full list of the infected apps

This shows that attackers still finding ways to bypass the Google Play Store and infiltrate with malicious apps.

Before installing apps users are recommended to check the background of the application and its developer company reputation.