At least 17 dangerous applications which can open your android devices to possible virus attacks have been discovered on the Google play store.
According to UK Sun, these “hacked” apps provide handy features like emoji, wallpapers and even some work as photo filters but are actually apps designed to flood your phone with ads.
With well over 20 of these ‘hack’ apps making a stage on Google Play Store, these rogue apps generate quick cash for crooks, while it slows down your device, drains battery life and generally worsens the state of your device.
Cyber experts at Bitdefender confirmed that these apps have been installed by more than 2 million android device users.
This nefarious makes deleting them difficult by swapping their icon and renaming itself as ‘Settings’. They also hide on your device to avoid being deleted.
They trick users into thinking they launched the genuine Setting app by first shrinking completely from sight before they load into the real Settings app.
Before you can view them, you will have to navigate into your full apps list and delete them manually because they won’t appear in the recent list, making them difficult to track down.
Here’s the list of rogue apps:
- Walls light – Wallpapers Pack (gb.packlivewalls.fournatewren)
- Big Emoji – Keyboard 5.0 (gb.blindthirty.funkeyfour)
- Grand Wallpapers – 3D Backdrops 2.0 (gb.convenientsoftfiftyreal.threeborder)
- Engine Wallpapers (gb.helectronsoftforty.comlivefour)
- Stock Wallpapers (gb.fiftysubstantiated.wallsfour)
- EffectMania – Photo Editor 2.0 (gb.actualfifty.sevenelegantvideo)
- Art Filter – Deep Photoeffect 2.0 (gb.crediblefifty.editconvincingeight)
- Fast Emoji Keyboard APK (de.eightylamocenko.editioneights)
- Create Sticker for Whatsapp 2.0 (gb.convincingmomentumeightyverified.realgamequicksix)
- Math Solver – Camera Helper 2.0 (gb.labcamerathirty.mathcamera)
- Photopix Effects – Art Filter 2.0 (gb.mega.sixtyeffectcameravideo)
- Led Theme – Colorful Keyboard 2.0 (gb.theme.twentythreetheme)
- Animated Sticker Master 1.0 (am.asm.master)
- Sleep Sounds 1.0 (com.voice.sleep.sounds)
- Personality Charging Show 1.0 (com.charging.show)
- Image Warp Camera
- GPS Location Finder (smart.ggps.lockakt)
