New ‘Judy’ malware on Android might have infected 36 million machines

The malware was included in some apps available through the official Google Play Store, with Checkpoint indicating between 8.5 and 35.5 million users could have been affected. That means the malicious software could be the most wide-spread malware yet to strike the official Android app store.

The actual number of infected users not been confirmed at this time but Checkpoint warns that the malware existed in some apps which had been available on the Play Store for many years.

Check Point indicates that the malware, which is apparently designed to deceitfully generate ad revenue, was found lurking on 41 separate apps on the Google Play Store and was seemingly able to skirt around Bouncer system of Google. Especially, some of the wrong apps have been available for downloading for years, though at this point, it is still not clear if the malware was already present or may be inserted later on through a software update.

Themonitor.com posted on May 29th, 2017, quoting a security report stating "The malware uses infected devices to generate large amounts of fraudulent clicks on advertisements generating revenues for the criminals behind it."

Checkpoint explains that the viruses which came with these programs went mostly without being noticed because programs were installed through Google, which is the official source, but the malware code was downloaded from a non-Google server. The blog said that apps are swiftly removed from Play store after Check Point informed Google about this threat. In the beginning of the month, WannaCry ransomware created havoc all over the world, striking systems in the countries including UK and Russia.

Computers infected with malware are the ones that are running on the older operating systems versions of Microsoft such as XP, locking the files access on computer. Although the govt. maintains that there are just few stray instances in India, several reports of security solutions companies said that the countries of Asia are amongst worst suffered nations due to Wannacry.

This is not the first incident about a malware invasion through the screening process on Google Play nor it is the most damaging - Checkpoint did not find any proof, for example, that "Judy" compromised data on infected phones.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/2/2017