These Crappy Android Cleaner Apps Are Actually Malware
While the latest Android malware to watch out for isn’t nearly as popular as rogue apps that have recently been downloaded over 382 million times , it’s pretty serious.
Security researchers at Trend Micro recently labeled a number of Android apps, with more than 470,000 downloads, as fake system cleaning utilities that could actually install over 3,000 other malicious apps on a user’s device. Worse, these shitty apps can also log into these other shitty apps using Facebook or Google credentials to help perpetuate ad fraud (and probably get the malware creator a decent payoff before being caught).
As Trend Micro describes:
Based on our analysis, 3,000 variants of malware or malicious payloads (identified by Trend Micro as AndroidOS_BoostClicker.HRX) that can be downloaded to an affected device using this campaign pretend to be system apps that do not display app icons on the device launcher or list of apps … The cybercriminals behind this campaign can use the affected device to post fake positive reviews for malicious apps, as well as use various ad fraud methods by clicking on pop-up ads.
While chances are good that you weren’t infected with the original apps or the malware they drop onto your device, here’s a short list of apps you’d like to look out for (just in case):
- Shoot Clean-Junk Cleaner, Phone Booster, CPU Cooler
- Super Clean Lite – Booster, Clean & CPU Cooling
- Super Clean-Phone Booster, Junk Cleaner and CPU Cooler
- Quick Games-H5 Game Center
- Rocket cleaner
- Rocket Cleaner Lite
- Speed up phone cleaner, junk cleaner and app manager
- LinkWorldVPN
- Play box H5
What’s more important in this case is what Trend Micro has done to avoid such shitty apps on the Google Play Store. But first, I’ll give you a tip: you don’t need cleaner apps for your Android. The approximate size is one here, but I’ve never used (nor needed) a cleaner app in all the countless years I’ve used Android and my devices have never suffered. Plus, you’re only asking for trouble if you really think an app with a fake name like “Super Clean-Phone Booster, Junk Cleaner & CPU Cooler” will do something useful for your phone.
If you really, really feel the performance of your device is scary, consider backing up your photos and videos to the cloud , factory reset your device, and install it from scratch. Chances are, your device will still be slow as new apps and operating system updates may have higher requirements than when you first bought your smartphone, but you can at least clean up some system resources by massively clearing any background. apps you forgot about. And if your phone is almost completely loaded with data, freeing up space can make Android run a little faster.
As for Trend Micro, they have a great observation about how difficult it is to verify the legitimacy of an app just by looking at its reviews and ratings, that is, if you just focus on numbers and asterisks.
Verifying the legitimacy of an app is usually done by checking user-generated reviews on the Play Store. However, in this particular case, the malicious application is capable of loading payloads that could post fake reviews without the user’s knowledge. Despite many positive reviews, it leaves some red flags – although different users have provided positive reviews, the comments they leave contain the same exact text: “Great, works fast and well.” They also gave the app the same four-star rating.
As always, stick with downloading apps from Google Play and disable the ability to install apps from unknown sources on your device if you’ve ever used that to download an app and forgot to reset it. When you think about installing a new app on your device, even from Google Play, ask yourself if it’s really necessary. Do a web search to see if there are more reliable alternatives from well-known app developers and brands. Read the reviews to see if they sound bad. The app has been around for years and gets regular updates, or is it the very first version of the app – and somehow it garnered a ton of reviews despite being only a few days old?
Unfortunately, it’s your responsibility to ensure that no crappy apps are installed on your device. Google can help, but as we have seen, it cannot capture everything in advance. And make sure you give your friends this advice too; You may be smart, but your loved ones, who are a little less tech-savvy, are probably going crazy with downloads of cleaners and other malware. To help them!