The Google Play Store, unfortunately, hosts many adware and clickfraud apps for Android devices. A recent investigation shed light on this issue and found that the following 22 apps should be uninstalled immediately by Android users:
- Sparkle
- Snake Attack
- Math Solver
- ShapeSorter
- Take A Trip
- Magnifeye
- Join Up
- Zombie Killer
- Space Rocket
- Neon Pong
- Just Flashlight
- Table Soccer
- Cliff Diver
- Box Stack
- Jelly Slice
- AK Blackjack
- Color Tiles
- Animal Match
- Roulette Mania
- HexaFall
- HexaBlocks
- PairZap
These types of apps are quite deceptive because they look like any other Android app on the Google Play Store. These apps constantly use a significant amount of your phone’s resources and drain a large portion of your smartphone’s battery. The reason for this is that the apps run malicious ads through a hidden browser window that simulates ad clicks.
The aforementioned apps also trick ad networks into running on iPhones instead of Android devices. The developers behind the apps are then able to get paid by advertisers, thus generating more revenue. Even when users close these apps, they will continue to perform malicious activities in the background.
"From the user's perspective, these apps consume the phone's battery and a large amount of data as they run continuously and communicate with servers in the background," said Sophos Labs principal threat researcher Chen Yu.
Sophos , and Google removed all of them from the Play Store in the last week of November. These apps are no longer available for download from the Play Store. However, many of them are still installed on Android devices and continue to deceive ad networks, providing a continuous stream of revenue to the developers. That is why we recommend that you uninstall these clickfraud apps immediately.
The most popular app on the list is Sparkle, which appears to be a simple flashlight app for Android. The app has been downloaded more than a million times. Three of the apps on the list were created in 2016 and 2017 and did not contain any malicious code when they first appeared on the Play Store. Sophos researchers discovered that the clickfraud code was added to the three apps in June. The majority of these malicious Android apps were created in or after June 2018.
