Researchers caught a bunch of dubious apps preying on Android users. This time, malicious Android apps stole Facebook credentials. The apps potentially affected millions of users.
Researchers from a French cybersecurity firm Evina found numerous apps on Google Play Store that targeted Android users with malware. Specifically, these malicious apps stole Facebook credentials of Android users.
They revealed that they found 25 different applications exhibiting this dubious behavior. In brief, all these apps contained malware that reached the users’ device via Google Play Store. After establishing on the target device, the malware would then used to check every app opening on the device. Upon detecting Facebook, the malware would open a browser window luring the user to enter the credentials. While the user would enter the details considering the new window as Facebook, the malware would steal the credentials in the back and would send it to its server. These 25 apps had a combined 2.34 million downloads. It means the malware potentially affected millions of users.
Upon detecting the malicious apps, Google removed all the 25 apps from the Play Store. It means that the threat, for now, is over. However, it actually never ends. Nobody knows when the next batch of malicious or suspicious apps would appear on the Play Store and start preying on users. Nevertheless, users can always prevent such attacks by downloading the apps only from legit and trusted developers.