Thanks to the work of Dr.Web it was possible to identify four apps with adware characteristics on Google Play Store. What makes this discovery disturbing, however, are the numbers linked to the downloads of these applications: we are talking about approximately 2 million installations total.
The software in question are:
- Super Skibydi Killer;
- Agent Shooter;
- Rubber Punch 3D;
- Rainbow Stretch.
The first app here has amassed a million installs alone, while the second and third have reached half a million, with the fourth recording around 50,000 downloads.
The lowest common denominator between the four apps mentioned above is the malware that they distribute, that is HiddenAds. As is easy to guess from the names themselves, these are games which, once installed, try to “camouflage” themselves by presenting an icon that is difficult to identify.
Not just HiddenAds: here are the other adware apps identified
HiddenAds works in the background, affecting browsers and offering annoying advertisements.
This type of annoying presence on the Play Store, however, is not the only one identified by Dr. Web. The cybersecurity company, in fact, recently found an entire family of adware known as FakeApp.
In this context they have so far been identified 6 other apps, always passed off as games, which however recorded a much lower number of overall downloads (around 60,000 in total). The software in question are:
- Eternal Maze (Yana Pospyelova);
- Jungle Jewels (Vaibhav Wable);
- Stellar Secrets (Pepperstocks);
- Fire Fruits (Sandr Sevill);
- Cowboy’s Frontier (Precipice Game Studios);
- Enchanted Elixir (Acomadyi).
All the apps listed so far have already been deleted from the Google Play Store. If they have already been installed, however, the advice is to delete them as soon as possible and carry out a thorough scan of the device using a specific tool. antivirus.
