Android is Google used by billions of devices around the world.
The software is regularly updated by the company, which means that new features and improvements are introduced very frequently.
Google regularly highlights Android's security as one of the system's most appealing features. In fact, the company recently highlighted how it has been cracking down on "bad apps and malicious developers" in a detailed post over the past year. However, it appears that some programs installed on users' devices may be putting them at risk.
Express.co.uk McAfee 's Raj Samani and Gary Davis, who jointly highlighted the problem of what they called "dead apps".
Samani is a McAfee partner and chief scientist, while Davis is the company's chief enterprise security specialist.
The term dead app was used to describe a program that is no longer available in the Google Play Store, but is still installed on users' devices.
Samani was keen to highlight the fact that Google does not notify users when a specific app they have installed has been discontinued.
He said: “If you download an app from an authorized app store, that doesn’t mean there’s no chance the app is malicious. So you need to check your phone and see if there are any dead apps.”
Meanwhile, Davis noted that discontinued apps still have the ability to collect data and send it to third parties without the user's knowledge.
Furthermore, he insisted that Android should be updated to detect software that is no longer in the Google Play Store to inform the user about the potential risks they may face.
Davis said: “What’s happening is that these apps can still collect data and share it with third parties, and Google isn’t implementing updates to get rid of this app.”
The risks associated with dead apps can be mitigated by uninstalling them.
If users wish to take additional precautions to ensure that their device does not contain harmful content from this software, they can perform a hardware scan using a security program.
