Malicious Android Apps with Over 40M Installs On the Play Store
From the past few years, we have witnessed various malicious Android apps that have been created with the purpose to make money by hacking a user’s mobile phone. Most of the malicious apps run video advertisements to gain huge profits. These apps steal the user’s sign up details to get the benefit of the other premium services.
In short, there are several ways through which these malicious apps can gain data out of a phone. It is not the first time when the leading operating system giant Google has been put its users at risk.
The situation has been witnessed by the users several times but this time the malicious app emerged as a keyboard mobile app called Snaptube. The app was available on Google Play Store a few days back. According to the latest reports at Upstream a Cybersecurity firm; the video downloading app Snaptube is an Android app that has been downloaded more than 40 million times.
The main reason the users are facing this issue is that Android users often install mobile apps from third party sites. Google has already warned its users to not install apps from any third party resources for high-risk users. And the same thing happened with this video downloader app — SnapTube, the app is downloaded by more than 40 million Android. The app is developed by fraudsters to perform various ad frauds without the Android phone user’s knowledge.
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The reports shared by the Cybersecurity firm, Upstream revealed that the SnapTube app helps you download videos from Facebook and YouTube but the app is performing some malicious activity in the background. Snaptube is running various ads to generate money. The firm also claimed that the video downloading app also generated various premium text messages and calls, without the knowledge of its users that generated more than $100 million.
However, if you are still not aware of the Snaptube app then to give you a brief idea about the app, Snaptube is a video and audio downloading application. You can use this app to download videos and audios from trendy video and music streaming websites and apps. Snaptube is developed by Mobiuspace, China-based Company.
Furthermore, it is also reported that the Snaptube Android app made millions of suspicious transactions in a very short period. The app in the background delivered non-human clicks and purchases on various sites while treating them as genuine views. This activity was done with the permission of the user.
As per reports, the developer of Snaptube “Mobiuspace” Company is looking forward to a potential partnership with security monitoring companies like Upstream. This step will positively help the company to keep an eye on the security issues. But till now, no such partnership has taken place with the Cybersecurity firm Upstream, but the security company has recently acknowledged that from some time very few issues are reported for the SnapTube app. This shows that the company has fixed the newer versions of the app.
It is important to note that the Android platform Google has by now removed the app from its store, but the app is still accessible on 3rd-party app stores. It is the right time to remove this app from your Android smartphone to avoid any money related to fraud.
In particular, the security firm Upstream also informed the users that its Secure-D platform has identified 32 million suspicious transaction requests from devices that downloaded the Android Snaptube app. However, the company has blocked all these transactions. In the meantime, Google advises its users who have downloaded this app to check their smartphone devices once again for odd behavior.
In case you are facing any sort of issue like fast battery raining issues, overheating, data plan drain, or any additional charges for any digital services then it is possible that you have become a victim. Thus, Android mobile phone users need to be more practical about their device security than those of iOS users. It is good to download the applications only from authentic places like Google’s Play Store and avoid all other third party websites. Meanwhile, users need to research the marketplace and online reviews before downloading any app.
Conclusion:
Overall, it seems that from past some time various malicious apps are popping up in the Google Play Store. To this, a lot of Cybersecurity experts have been commenting that the Android store is getting out of hand. Well, it is not possible to keep data of the entire malicious app, but a rising number of mobile apps available in the Android store are exposed to malicious activities. If you are an Android user, then it is good to take some steps to protect your device–and carefully check the permissions you grant to apps on your mobile while installation.
