More than 80 Android apps infected about 8 million Android users’ phones.
The apps in question were fakes impersonating photo editing tools and games.
All of the apps in question were removed from the Play Store, so you don’t need to worry about downloading them going forward.
What do adware apps do?
As the name suggests, adware apps deal with advertising. While you surf the internet on your phone, adware clicks on ads in the background, which generates money for advertisers. This might not sound bad, but you can be bombarded with ads as a result, and your phone will also waste battery and data in the process.
According to an article from TechCrunch, these apps were very sneaky and weren’t offering any clues that anything fishy was going on in the background. The ads were also notoriously hard to close.
Yeah, this sounds scary, but iPhones aren’t faring much better in the news these days:
Your iPhone is probably packed with thousands of trackers sending private data
Read now ►What should I do?
The best thing you can do is to download a trusted antivirus program like Avast. If you run Avast, you can delete all traces of the adware. Just make sure you restart your phone after you run it.
However, from now on when you download apps on from the Play Store, make sure that you know the app comes from a trusted publisher. If an app has thousands of downloads and positive reviews, you can probably assume that you’ll be safe. According to the TechCrunch article, pretty much all of the apps in question had awful reviews on the Play Store. However, weekly virus scans are a great way to make sure you are safe from adware and other viruses.
