adware malware | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

More than 50 Android apps on the Google Play Store—most of which were designed for kids and had racked up almost 1 million downloads between them—have been caught using a new trick to secretly click on ads without the knowledge of smartphone users. Dubbed " Tekya ," the malware in the apps imitated users' actions to click ads from advertising networks such as Google's AdMob, AppLovin', Facebook, and Unity, cybersecurity firm Check Point Research noted in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Twenty four of the infected apps were aimed at children (ranging from puzzles to racing games), with the rest being utility apps (such as cooking apps, calculators, downloaders, translators, and so on)," the researchers said. While the offending apps have been removed from Google Play, the find by Check Point Research is the latest in an avalanche of ad fraud schemes that have plagued the app storefront in recent years, with malware posing as optimizer an

First of all, if you have any of the below-listed apps installed on your Android device, you are advised to uninstall it immediately. Cybersecurity researchers have identified 42 apps on the Google Play Store with a total of more than 8 million downloads, which were initially distributed as legitimate applications but later updated to maliciously display full-screen advertisements to their users. Discovered by ESET security researcher Lukas Stefanko, these adware Android applications were developed by a Vietnamese university student, who easily got tracked likely because he never bothered to hide his identity. The publicly available registration details of a domain associated with the adware apps helped find the identity of the rogue developer, including his real name, address, and phone number, which eventually led the researcher to his personal accounts on Facebook, GitHub, and YouTube. "Seeing that the developer did not take any measures to protect his identity, it