Google Removes 13 Malware Apps From Play Store Accusing Of Malware Content

Google has reportedly removed 13 apps from its Play Store that were installing malicious malware on the Android devices. This comes after an ESET security Researcher Lukas Stefanko tweeted about these apps, demonstrating how they were fake and would hide their app icons on a device after being downloaded and installed. Google has immediately arranged to have these 13 apps removed from the Play Store. But the unfortunate part is these apps have already been downloaded 560,000 or over half a million times. And a couple of these apps were even part of the list of ‘trending’ apps on the Play Store. The apps do not have any legitimate functionality but request users to install APK called ‘Game Center’ that once launched, hides and displays advertisements when the device is unlocked.

This is not the first time that Google is hosting malware apps in the Play store. In the month of January this year, Google has revealed in a blog post that it has removed around more than 700000 apps which have violated the Google Play Policies and 100000 bad developers from the Play Store in 2017.