How the Play Store put malware on 500,000 Android smartphones

Android phones have always been a target for hackers and malware but recently I found a really clever way that someone managed to completely slip through the Play Store security measures to infect hundreds of thousands of devices so first up what is Android malware it is a piece of software specifically designed to damage or harvest data like contacts record phone calls steal your passwords and payment credentials and potentially even use your phone to mine cryptocurrency often the hackers will then go on to sell your information on the dark web the huge amounts of money and the crazy thing is that a lot of the time this is going on in people's pockets without them having any knowledge of it at all so at this point you might be thinking how can I tell if my Android device is infected and one of the first warning signs to look out for is a sudden change in battery life sometimes this is just the reality of batteries nearing the end of their lifespan however viruses and malware on your phone use up your phone's resources to fuel the infection so if after installing a certain application you've suddenly noticed a dip then that's something to look into as the malware is often very active on your phone another symptom is unexplained overheating and extremely slow performance and aside from on your twice itself just keep an eye out for mysterious charges on your phone bill if you spot an unusual uptake in data charges or unexplained phone calls and text messages this could be a malicious app sending data back to the attacker or even a virus trying to spread itself to other devices via text messages or emails so how did malware get onto the Play Store a few weeks ago Google admitted that they discovered 13 successful apps on the Play Store which contained malware on the surface these apps were disguised as perfectly legitimate racing games but the actual games never existed the way they got around Google's safety net was that the base packages didn't contain any of the malware it was actually only when you download it and install the application that the malware would then be downloaded from the internet and what is quite clever is that whoever built this made it so that when you install these apps the icons would disappear so that there's a decent chance you'd forget you'd installed them and the we'll just keep existing and spreading what makes things worse is that two of these malicious apps made it onto Google play's trending page and altogether these 13 apps were installed over half a million times before they were discovered now all credit to Google as soon as they were found out these apps were immediately pulled from the Play Store they took action quickly but this isn't the first time this has happened earlier this year Google disclosed that it had discovered over 700,000 malicious apps on the Play Store in 2017 alone with tens of millions of devices being affected so how on earth did this happen the problem is that unlike Apple's App Store on iOS Google does not screen each and every submission to its Play Store this makes Android a more accessible platform for developers and easier for them to update their apps without any of the delays you experience on an iPhone however this strength is also one of the Play stores biggest weaknesses and it just leaves a small window for hackers to be able to get malicious software on their that's not to say apples ecosystem is immune to malware but the trade-off of using a far more open and customizable operating system like Android is that you're far more likely to encounter these dangerous apps so if you're anything like me and you're scouring the Play Store regularly to try and find new and exciting apps how do you protect yourself from Android malware most of the time it just boils down to having a keen eye and just using a bit of digital common sense the first potential sign is seeing a whole wall of permission requests when you're about to install an app just have a think does this racing game actually need to read my contacts the second thing is to just keep an eye on your phone's activity monitor not obsessively but once or twice a week is fine all you're looking for is applications that are using a lot more of your phone's resources than they should be and if you keep an eye on this and just keep these applications in check you'll not only protect yourself from malware but also extend the length of your phone's battery and probably improve performance too finally when you're on the Play Store take a moment to read the reviews and look at the number of downloads it's usually pretty easy to spot the fake apps from the real ones just based on people's feedback alright guys thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video or you found it useful it would mean a lot to me if you could master subscribe button down below as always my name is Aaron this is mr. he's the boss and I'll catch you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Mrwhosetheboss

Views: 2,893,777

Keywords: android, play store, google play store, google play store apps, best apps, android apps, smartphone, apps not on google play, apps not on the play store, hidden android apps, tech

Id: rMKlkTIxwrs

Length: 4min 50sec (290 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 04 2019