Adware is one of the stealthiest types of malware that can infect an Android device and is sometimes extremely difficult to detect. Bitdefender discovered its presence in more than 60,000 applications worldwide, although the number is believed to be higher. Fortunately, Europe is not one of the most affected countries.
Its gateway to mobile phones and tablets are stores outside of Google Play, as some of them They do not carry out exhaustive checks on the applications they offer. This allows them to blend in with others who are completely normal.
Besides, they manage to hide in the system so that it is difficult to delete them, so it can be difficult to realize that they are there. In fact, those recently discovered are believed to have been operating secretly for at least 6 months.
What is adware
This type of malware does not steal user information, but rather specializes in display advertising intrusively and without permission. This advertisement brings income to its author, and can appear in the form of scrolling windows or in full screen format.
However, the creators of this malware can also redirect users to phishing or similar pages They try to steal your data. The potential danger they have is quite large.
In order to hide its real intentions, the adware pretends to be a normal app in the store. Usually your request is who promise to get paid content for free, although they can also be camouflaged among other things. Some that have been imitated are free VPN services, games with premium features unlocked, free access to Netflix or YouTube Premium, and weather services or PDF readers.
One of the most interesting discoveries researchers have made is that ignores a Google mechanism to hide the app icon. In theory, on Android, once an app is opened from its icon on the home screen, it cannot be hidden.
Adware apps may appear without a name or icon in the apps list in settings
The free Android
To do this, the malicious application disguises itself, and once installed, automatically opens and displays a notice that it is not available. This way, since it was not run from the launcher, you can hide its icon. Later, if the user tries to open it, a message will appear stating that it has not been installed.
Nothing could be further from the truth, what he did was hide in broad daylight so that It can only be deleted from the application manager, in Settings. From this section, you can access everything installed, including system ones. However, there are so many that it can be difficult to find it, and you should make sure it appears without a name or icon.
In addition to the danger of having adware on your mobile, it is quite annoying to constantly have to see advertisements. Added to this is the battery discharge that occurs due to this process constantly running in the background.
More than 60,000 apps infected
Researchers from Bitdefender have detected the presence of this malware in more than 60,000 devices, although it is suspected that there are many more. They have spread to a large number of countries, but most of them have been detected in the United States, with 55.27% of the total.
Fortunately, Europe is not one of the most affected countries., since it does not even appear in the graph independently, but could be integrated in Other countries, with 12.19% of the total. In South Korea, 9.8% of these applications have been downloaded while Brazil has 5.96%. Some European countries like France with 2.56% or Romania with 2.41% have also suffered from this virus.
Countries affected by discovered advertising apps
The free Android
Downloading camouflaged malware It does not come from Google Play, but from external stores. This does not mean that it happens in all of them, because there are alternatives like Uptodown that perform verification of the software they offer.
One of the detected patterns is that the adware wait a few days before you start serving ads so as not to attract attention and the user does not suspect. After a while, it starts showing ads opened through the browser, so that when the responsible application is displayed, it appears to be the application with which the user normally accesses the Internet.
Its existence on Android was discovered using an app that uses a machine learning model to detect suspicious behavior on mobile phones. From Bitdefender recommends using antimalware apps to prevent these types of attacks, as well as to review app behavior and whether too many ads appear where they shouldn’t.
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