Last Updated on 22/11/2021 by Riya
Even after deleting around 200 malicious apps from the Google Play store, several malicious apps are still available on the platform. As per the sources Android apps with a malicious Android trojan named grifthorse have infected over 10 million Android devices across 70 countries.
The information has been discovered by a team of researchers at Zimperium Labs (via TheRecord). For the past one year, GriftHorse has been active on the web and has been looted over millions of dollars from Android users. Although, for many years Google tries their best to keep its app store protected from malicious apps still they fail to remain it completely secure from the eyes of the hackers.
How does this malware lure people’s attention?
Whenever a user installs any app injected with GriftHorse a malware sent several notifications to that user including special discounts or various prizes and once people hit the notification they will be reverted to a different page where they need to confirm their cell number to reap the benefit of the offer.
Although, instead of subscribing to any offer, people would unknowingly subscribe to premium SMS services that will cost them over $35 a month.A report reveals that this trick helps GriftHorse to earn up to $1.5 million to $4 million a month.
Fortunately, Zimperium given the list of malicious apps to Google and google had also removed those infected apps from the play store however, still, the apps are available on third-party app stores.
A similar kind of incident was also done by Grifthorse 3 years back when a mobile security and data management firm Wandera discover a malicious campaign where the operator attracted several premium users of the mobile company via SMS campaign, this proves that Grifthorse is not new to this work.
