238 Google Play apps with >440 million installs made phones nearly unusable

'If the prevalence of abusive Google Play apps has left you numb, this
latest report is for you. Carefully concealed adware installed in
Google-approved apps with more than 440 million installations was so
aggressive that it rendered mobile devices nearly unusable,
researchers from mobile security provider Lookout said Tuesday.

BeiTaAd, as the adware is known, is a plugin that Lookout says it
found hidden in emojis keyboard TouchPal and 237 other applications,
all of which were published by Shanghai, China-based CooTek. Together,
the 238 unique apps had a combined 440 million installs. Once
installed, the apps initially behaved normally. Then, after a delay of
anywhere between 24 hours and 14 days, the obfuscated BeiTaAd plugin
would begin delivering what are known as out-of-app ads. These ads
appeared on users' lock screens and triggered audio and video at
seemingly random times or even when a phone was asleep.'

-- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/06/238-google-play-apps-with-440-million-installs-made-phones-nearly-unusable/

Cheers, Peter
-- 
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
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