Google seriously needs to make its platform more secure as 172 malicious apps with more than 335 million downloads were found on Play Store. In only September, the researchers discovered a total of 172 apps containing malicious content with millions of download available on Play Store and the most worst part is that when these apps were discovered by security experts they already had more than 335 million installs.
We are living in the era of the digital world and the majority of the people prefer doing the majority of the tasks via their smartphones in comparison to physically going to multiple places to do the tasks. So this dependency of users on apps is what’s making it easy for hackers to create malicious apps disguised as apps offering unique services.
According to the data compiled by ESET malware researcher named Lukas Stefanko, the adware accounted for staggering around 300 million installs. A variety of other malware was also found on Play Store which included subscription spam, hidden ads, and SMS premium subscription software as well. According to the security researchers, there more than 57 apps available in Play Store with hidden ads which made up less than 5 percent of total installs of malware apps. According to the data by Stefanko, the number of installs these malicious apps had was at the time they were flagged by security researchers. We are still unclear about the number of times these apps were installed over the past month but the huge amount of installs of these malicious apps is a big concern for all of us.
The discovery of these apps is something all not so bad, most of the harmful apps found by security researchers have been removed already by Google and if not all of 172 apps but the majority of the malicious apps are now not available on Google Play Store anymore.
This is not the first time Google has to deal with malware on its Play Store but it is surely a high time for the security team of Google to look for some new strategies to provide alternative solutions to these problems. For now, it clearly seems as Google is failing to secure the platform from these malicious apps and we are really waiting for an official response from Google itself regarding these new findings by security teams. Till then, try to avoid such malicious apps by only downloading apps from authenticated sources only and always check who developed it before clicking the install button.
Read next: Google Play Store contains adware disguised as VPN apps
We are living in the era of the digital world and the majority of the people prefer doing the majority of the tasks via their smartphones in comparison to physically going to multiple places to do the tasks. So this dependency of users on apps is what’s making it easy for hackers to create malicious apps disguised as apps offering unique services.
According to the data compiled by ESET malware researcher named Lukas Stefanko, the adware accounted for staggering around 300 million installs. A variety of other malware was also found on Play Store which included subscription spam, hidden ads, and SMS premium subscription software as well. According to the security researchers, there more than 57 apps available in Play Store with hidden ads which made up less than 5 percent of total installs of malware apps. According to the data by Stefanko, the number of installs these malicious apps had was at the time they were flagged by security researchers. We are still unclear about the number of times these apps were installed over the past month but the huge amount of installs of these malicious apps is a big concern for all of us.
The discovery of these apps is something all not so bad, most of the harmful apps found by security researchers have been removed already by Google and if not all of 172 apps but the majority of the malicious apps are now not available on Google Play Store anymore.
Google has a bad history of hosting harmful apps
This is not the first time Google Play Store is accused of hosting malicious apps. The tech giant has a history of allowing thousands of such apps on the platform. In July, Google hosted a total amount of 205 harmful apps that were installed more than 32 million times on mobile according to the data revealed by Stefanko.This is not the first time Google has to deal with malware on its Play Store but it is surely a high time for the security team of Google to look for some new strategies to provide alternative solutions to these problems. For now, it clearly seems as Google is failing to secure the platform from these malicious apps and we are really waiting for an official response from Google itself regarding these new findings by security teams. Till then, try to avoid such malicious apps by only downloading apps from authenticated sources only and always check who developed it before clicking the install button.
Read next: Google Play Store contains adware disguised as VPN apps
