Flashlight Application from Google’s Play Store Disseminates Malverts

At 2016 beginning, Google cleared the Play Store off thirteen apps because they were malicious. These applications were Cake Blast, Just Fire, Honeycomb, Tiny Puzzle, Drag Box, Crazy Block, Piggy Jump, Ninja Hook, Jump Planet, Crazy Jelly, Cake Tower, Hit Planet and Eat Bubble. But, there were more applications which Google removed from its Play Store.

Whilst it isn't anything new to find apps which display advertisements, those that have been removed display advertisements that are related to scareware alerting device owners that infection has set into their phones alternatively virus has entered their battery.

Here, certain more savvy end-users may simply uninstall the application to substitute it with some other, while those not so savvy may click on the advertisement that will dupe them into pulling down one more application supposedly an anti-virus or virus remover.

Security Company Trend Micro states that one particular application Super-Bright LED Flashlight inside Play Store is persistently serving advertisements to end-users once they download it. Softpedia.com posted this dated May 21, 2016.

And though the company states that the application along with those behind its development mightn't be entirely responsible because an ad network plays the role of retrieving and exhibiting the advertisements, however, given negative user remarks are enormous, it indicates they aren't also making any effort for resolving the problem.

Presently, Flashlight continues to be obtainable from Google's Play Store, and according to Google, people downloaded the app more than 100m times over. As per Trend Micro, Google as well as each and every store that offers the application have been informed.

Flashlight applications have high demand because they aren't built into most phones. Previously, miscreants frequently utilized flashlight apps and games for disseminating malware considering the high popularity the former carried. Whilst mostly these malevolent applications get disseminated through intermediate application stores, occasionally these applications entered Google Play Store too.

The kind of applications is called Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUAs) since they usually contain malicious software. Trend Micro reports in its yearly research paper that during 2015, 0.15% of the entire applications from Play Store that was downloaded contained malware.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/27/2016