Despite the fact that Google is dedicating a great effort to prevent certain fraudulent applications from being available in its official store, from time to time we collect news related to a series of apps that end up being removed from the Google Play Store for containing malware.
And it has happened again, because the McAfee research team has discovered a software library called goldosoncapable of collecting sensitive information and conducting ad fraud, and who has been included in a large set of Applications of the Google Play Store.
Apparently, the developers of these applications that were using this third-party software library, were unaware that they included malicious malware in their programs, so they Google has given them the option to clean up the code to bring back their apps.
This is important malware, since once installed, it can collect data about the apps installed on a device, but also a history of devices connected to WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS locations.
It is also capable of committing ad fraud by clicking on ads in the background without user’s consent.
The latter is accomplished by using the library that loads the HTML code and injects it into a custom, hidden WebView.
As the research firm explains, once this library is installed in an application, the device is registered and receives its remote settings at the same time the application is running.
These are the affected applications
Affected apps include: L.Point with L.Pay, Swipe Brick Breaker, Money Manager Expense & Budget, GOM Player, Live Score, GOM Audio, and Compass 9. list McAfee.
In this way, if you recognize one, you must immediately delete it from your phone or tablet until it is updated and returns to the store.
As they say, users who are running the latest versions of Android are more protected against applications that try to collect information from the device.
However, the firm maintains that even on the latest version of the Android operating system, this malicious library is capable of collecting sensitive information in around 10% of installed applications.
Apps containing this malware library have already been reported to Google by McAfee, and Google has removed them from the store.
Those applications that were updated by their developers without the malicious code will gradually return to the store.
