Numerous research revealed two Android apps on the Google Play Store with over 1.5 million downloads, using hidden click-less adware that decreases phone performance, increases data usage, and drains battery faster.
Uninstall these two apps from your Android now!
The two applications of the developer ” Idea master ” are Idea Note: OCR, GTD, Color Notes text scanner and “Beauty Fitness: daily training, best HIIT coach”. Malware-laden applications managed to achieve over 1.5 million downloads in all. year and have not been detected as a virus by the Play Store.
According to Symantec, the two Idea master applications have been packaged using legitimate packagers developed to protect the intellectual property of Android applications.
The entire structure and flow of an Android Package Kit (APK) can be changed by Android Packers, increasing the complexity for security researchers who have to keep up with the behavior of the APK. This clearly shows how successfully the developer injected adware into their application and went undetected.
Apps after installation would send notifications using the notification drawer on the Android device. When clicked, the toast notifications used to show a hidden view containing advertisements.
Ads were appearing outside of your display view, meaning they were running in the background without your knowledge. Idea Master has coded an automated ad click-through process that would generate ad revenue in the background, and users certainly have no idea.
This is all thanks to Symantec detecting malicious app behavior and notifying Google about adware apps on the Play Store. However, Google immediately removed the apps from the Play Store and deleted the developer’s account.
As a result, the security of the Play store has come into question again as a lot of adware goes to the Play Store undetected. Kaspersky researchers recently discovered malware in an application Camscanner very widespread, which had already been deleted by Google.
