More than 30 new Android apps have been found to be on the prowl on the Google Play Store that are capable of sending aggressive advertisements and also changing their names and logos after installation. According to Bitdefender, a new malware campaign is active on the Google Play Store where numerous apps use false pretexts to lure victims into installing them, only to change their name and aggressively serve ads afterwards.
The new group of malware Android apps have been installed more than 2 million times on victims' mobile devices.
According to Bitdefender, some of the other such Android apps that can spread malware and should be removed immediately include Big Emoji, Walls Light, Grad Wallpapers, Engine Wallpapers, Stock Wallpapers, EffectMania, Art Filter, Fast Emoji Keyboard, Create Sticker For WhatsApp, math Solver, Photopix Effects, Led Theme, Smart Wifi, among others.
Bitdefender has identified as many as 35 Android applications that have snuck into the Play Store, totalling more than two million downloads if we consider the available public data. These malicious apps hide their presence on the device by renaming themselves and changing their icon, then start serving aggressive ads. To further confuse the user and conceal their presence, the applications are changing their name and icon after installation.
"One of the ways cyber-criminals monetize their presence on Google Play is to serve ads to their victims. While this may sound diminutive, these ads served to victims are disrupting the usage experience and can link directly to malware," Bitdefender wrote in a blog post.
One such malicious app is the 'GPS Location Maps' app which has been downloaded over 100k times, and it's one of the more popular Android apps. However, the app doesn't have any reviews. Immediately after installation, the app changes its label from 'GPS Location Maps' to 'Settings' and then shows additional websites in WebViews and an advertisement.