The antivirus editor Dr. Web has unearthed a new list of malware disguised as Android applications. Most of them have now been removed from the Play Store, after having accumulated 10 million downloads. If you have installed one of the applications mentioned in this article, we strongly recommend that you remove it immediately.
Despite its increasingly effective safety nets, it’s not uncommon for Google to let malware infiltrate the Play Store. The most annoying thing is when the latter sometimes remain up to several people on the platform. Indeed, it regularly happens that an application camouflaged in reality a malware counts several thousands, even millions of downloads, and this in spite of the negative comments and ratings left by the victims.
Regularly, cybersecurity experts thus provide lists of these fake applications to avoid at all costs, and today’s one comes from the antivirus publisher Dr. Web. A nice batch moreover, since these applications of the day accumulate no less than 10 million downloads. We find everything in the lot: photomontage applications, keyboards, customizable wallpapers, etc.
On the same subject: Warning, this Android malware deletes data from your smartphone and empties your bank account
Remove these dangerous Android apps right away
If most of them do offer the promised features, these are only a pretext to install malware on the victim’s smartphone. Some contain, for example, Joker, a formidable malware that has been prowling on Android smartphones since 2019 capable of having its victim subscribe to premium subscriptions. Still others allow hackers to retrieve the social media credentials of their targets.
To remain incognito, these applications hide under another name and another icon once installed, thus imitating system functionality of the smartphone. They then request permission to run in the background to continue scanning the device. Alerted, Google removed the majority of this malware from the Play Store. However, three of them are still available as of this writing. Here is the full list of apps to uninstall:
- 4K Wallpapers Auto Changer
- Call Skins — Caller Themes
- Caller Theme
- Caller Theme
- Call Me Phone Themes
- Cash Cleaner
- Emoji Keyboard: Stickers & GIFs
- Fancy Charging
- FastCleaner: Cash 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