More than 60,000 Android apps infected with malware

According to CSO Online , the report from Bitdefender notes that the threat actors involved can easily switch tactics to redirect users to other types of malware, such as banking trojans to steal login credentials, financial information, or ransomware.

Android continues to be the target of malicious apps

Bitdefender has so far discovered more than 60,000 Android apps infected with the adware, and suspects there are many more. The malware has been around since at least October 2022, targeting users in the US, South Korea, Brazil, Germany, the UK, and France.

Threat actors use third-party apps to distribute malware because it is not available in any official store. To convince users to download and install third-party apps, malware operators hide the threat on highly sought-after items that people cannot find in official stores. In some cases, these apps simply copy apps published in the Google Play Store. Some of the types of apps that are mimicked by malware include cracked games, games with unlocked features, free VPNs, fake tutorials, ad-free YouTube/TikTok, cracked utility programs, PDF viewers, and even fake security programs.

The malware-infected apps behave like normal Android apps when installed, prompting the user to click “Open” after installation. However, the malware does not configure itself to run automatically, as that would require additional privileges. Once installed, the malware displays a message saying “app unavailable” to trick the user into thinking the malware does not exist, but in reality, it has no launcher icon and the UTF-8 characters in the label make it more difficult to detect and uninstall.

Once launched, the app communicates with the attacker's server and retrieves advertising URLs that will be displayed in the mobile browser or as full-screen WebView ads.

This is just one of the recent cases of Android apps containing malware. Last month, a piece of Android spyware called SpinOK was discovered by cybersecurity firm Doctor Web. The malware collects information about files stored on the device and can transfer them to malicious actors. It can also replace and upload clipboard contents to a remote server. Android apps containing SpinOk, which features spyware, have been installed more than 421 million times.

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