Google Play Store found to have malicious lifestyle apps with 30 million+ downloads

Now, these apps were able to bypass Google’s security mechanism which let them land on the Play Store with ease. Also, these apps are found to be having millions of downloads among them too. This makes those apps even more dangerous because of possible data theft. Last week, Check Point uncovered a report where it found a total of 6 apps being on the Play Store and running on the PreAMO ad fraud.

This latest report about the malicious apps on Play Store is brought to us by Avast’s cyber security team. The team at Avast found out that the 50 apps which are available as lifestyle apps on Google Play Store are actually adware or malware. Interestingly, the apps have already been downloaded 30 million times.

Avast has also found how these apps were able to bypass Google’s security checks to land on the Play Store and get downloaded so many times. In the report, Avast says that these apps were able to “bypass the background service restrictions present in newer Android versions.”

Some of these apps are Pro Piczoo, Photo Blur Studio, Mov-tracker, Magic Cut Out, and Pro Photo Eraser which are malware in the name of lifestyle apps. Most of these apps show full-page ads to the users and even lure them in installing another app for adware. The above mentioned apps are found to have installs from a thousand to a million times.