Security researchers are warning about an older scam targeting Android, asking them for money in exchange for installing Flash Player on their devices.
The threat has been detected in the PlayStore since late 2013, by researchers at McAfee, and has been identified as Android/Fladstep.B.
The malware is embedded in malicious applications and tries to convince users to pay a certain amount of money via PayPal in order to obtain Flash Player on their devices so that they can access content that requires the specific application.
Malware is removed from the PlayStore every time it is detected, but it constantly returns in the form of new applications.
Daisuke Nakajima, a researcher at McAfee, says that “When executed, the malicious app automatically opens a website that informs the user that Android needs a version of Flash Player and asks for €5/$6.70 to install it on the device.
“If the user pays the fee via PayPal, the website displays a download link for Flash Player that redirects to the authentic Adobe download page,” Nakajima says in a blog post.
To increase the success of the scam, the scammers report that the app can automatically detect the version of Flash Player required by the version of Android running on the victim's device.
In addition to the money for installing Flash Player, the scammers also collect the victim's name and email address via the PayPal transaction page.
