Android alert: Google reveals shock new Play Store warning – delete these apps NOW

Google’s Android operating system is no stranger to warnings about malware, viruses and threats from cyber criminals. But the latest update from Google shows just what a huge problem the US tech company is up against.

According to a new update from the firm’s security team, it appears that threats are being uploaded to the Play Store on an almost daily basis with one attack, known as Bread, designed specifically to attempt to slip into the Play Store undetected.

Google says it first started tracking Bread (also known as Joker) in early 2017, identifying apps created solely for SMS fraud.

Since then, a total of 1,700 unique Bread apps have been found and removed from the Play Store making it a huge challenge to stop.

In a post on its blog, Google said: “Sheer volume appears to be the preferred approach for Bread developers. At different times, we have seen three or more active variants using different approaches or targeting different carriers. Within each variant, the malicious code present in each sample may look nearly identical with only one evasion technique changed.

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“At peak times of activity, we have seen up to 23 different apps from this family submitted to Play in one day. At other times, Bread appears to abandon hope of making a variant successful and we see a gap of a week or longer before the next variant. This family showcases the amount of resources that malware authors now have to expend. Google Play Protect is constantly updating detection engines and warning users of malicious apps installed on their device.”

Google’s new Play Protect monitoring is clearly working as many of these dangerous apps were taken offline before anyone had managed to access them.

However, despite its best efforts, it seems some may have fallen through the net with a number of dangerous apps amassing over 500,000 downloads before being removed.

Back in September cybersecurity firm, CSIS Security Group discovered over 20 malicious apps that could be of danger to Android users.

Their research revealed that, once downloaded, the terrifying “Joker” malware was able to secretly sign users up to premium subscription services.

They could also hack SMS messages and steal contacts or key device information such as the IMEI numbers.

CSIS found a total of 24 Android apps that were littered with the malware and if you have any the on your phone you should delete them immediately:

• Wallpaper

• Age Face

• Altar Message

• Antivirus Security — Security Scan

• Beach Camera

• Board picture editing

• Certain Wallpaper

• Climate SMS

• Collate Face Scanner

• Cute Camera

• Dazzle Wallpaper

• Declare Message

• Display Camera

• Great VPN

• Humour Camera

• Ignite Clean

• Leaf Face Scanner

• Mini Camera

• Print Plant scan

• Rapid Face Scanner

• Reward Clean

• Ruddy SMS

• Soby Camera

• Spark Wallpaper

source: express.co.uk