Google is one of the biggest and most popular search engine company in the world and Android is the mobile operating system developed by Google. It is an open-source operating system. Open source means it is free to use and free to modify.
Android is designed basically for touch screen devices such as smart phones and tablets. Now Android OS is widely used in smart television, smartwatches etc too. As per the latest report, over 2.5 billion android powered smartphones are in use around the world and over 2.7 million android applications are available for installing in android play store.
Scientists at security firm Trend Micro have found many applications, including well-known utilities and recreations apps, to serve a huge amount of misleadingly ad promotions via malwares— including full-screen advertisements, shrouded promotions and promotions running out of sight to make money from clueless Android clients.
Check Point Research, a research firm have in last months revealed two popular malware which has been installed in excess of 250 million downloads combined. The main malware, named SimBad which was detected by the firm, was found that almost 210 applications on google play store were having it aboard, These applications had been downloaded around 150 million times before experts found the malware and informed the same to Google which later removed them. The second, known as Operation Sheep, just contaminated around 12 applications, but they have been so far downloaded in excess of 111 million times.
This information tells that even quite popular applications are infected with malware, which is installed in unsuspecting user devices. Users usually download any app listed on the Google Play store believing that it is harm-free and don’t contain any malicious code. However, This belief needs to be shattered.
If by above info you believe that only some of apps were infected with malware which has been found than it is not correct, every month hundreds of infected apps are found by various research firms A mobile security expert at Eset has recently released a list of 172 malware apps on Google play store which were found in September 2019 review.
Now from Above facts, it is clear that apps at Android play store are not always safe and some of them just don’t have adware but some have much worse malware like Trojan, phishing etc. Apps at android play store are frequently updated which makes the situation worse as a tested app which is found safe can have malware in updated version which might be left unchecked due to previously being marked safe. So from forward understand that not every app on play store is safe and you need to beware of malware apps available on play store.
How to protect your android smartphone from malware apps :-
- Firstly, keep your android smartphone up to date all time. It’s imperative to stay up with the latest version. Each update incorporates bug fixes to help secure your smartphone.
- Before downloading any Application, at least search once on internet regarding the same if it’s infected.
- Don’t download android application which is not available in android play store. Do not install apps from unknown sources.
- Don’t allow all permission blindly during installation of android apps. First, read and understand permissions need then allow them.
- Check the credibility of the developer before installing any android app.
- Use password protection features available in most of the android smartphones to protect from malware apps.
- Use reliable antivirus to protect your smartphone from malicious android applications.
