According to Trend Micro’s latest findings, 293,091 apps were found to be malicious and of these, 68,740 were found on the official Google Play store. It took Microsoft Windows 14 years to attract this volume of malicious code!
Around 22% of these malicious apps were found to leak information about the user. It is also predicted that malicious and high-risk Android apps will hit 1 million sometime this year.
Adware can be abused by cyber criminals for their aggressive advertising tactics such as persistent notifications, They also collects information about the user, thus violating the user’s privacy.
It is common for suspicious developers and parties to use the name of popular apps as social engineering bait. As soon as new versions make headlines, expect that these guys are out there concocting their bogus versions.
Shady developers and cybercriminals piggyback on the popularity of apps such as Temple Run. They also take advantage of Candy Crush, the hottest gaming apps in both social networks and Android.
22% of apps were found to inappropriately leak user data, over the network, SMS or telephone. The leaked data most often includes IMEI, ICCID, Contact data and telephone number. A few apps were even found to leak data using the microphone and camera (along with several other kinds of private data).
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