Google removes 29 adware-laced apps from Play store

Google Playstore is getting flooded by malicious apps that coax innocent users into downloading them.

After installing them, the icons of these bad apps disappear as soon as they are downloaded on the user’s device. So far, 29 malicious apps have been identified.

The White Ops Research Team was the first to uncover such apps, which were observed to hold high volumes of ad traffic and had an accumulated download count of 3.5 million. The campaign has been labeled 'ChartreuseBlur' as most of the apps have the “blur” factor obscuring their name or functionality.

Once downloaded, the apps make it very difficult for the user to uninstall them. They send characteristic alerts on the affected device and erase the icon of the app from the home screen, thereby making the deletion of the app a very complicated process.

The research team picked one of the malignant apps- 'Square photo Blur' as a test case to conduct analysis on to get further insight into the working of these apps.

The app sent out an avalanche of out-of-context ads to the affected device. Further research showed that the app had a three-stage payload evolution.

In the first stage, the app was observed to get installed with the aid of a Qihoo packer, which was a major red flag.

When the installation process graduated to stage two, a Blur app with the code com.appwallet.easyblur became quite visible in Square Photo Blur after unpacking. However, experts did not find anything faulty in the Blur app’s structure. It was found that it only existed to con users to believe that they were downloading a real app.

Suspicious activity was only reported in the third stage of the app’s installation. This is where the malicious code hidden inside the app starts to generate OOC ads, who’s presence can be registered in the form of packages com.bbb., such as com.bbb.NewIn.

After the installation is completed, researchers clicked on the app launcher icon of Square Photo Blur and found that it is a hollow shell of an app that happens to have passed the Play Store checks.

Google has since deleted the Square Photo Blur app and others from the Play store.

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