‘Joker’ malware has affected these 24 Android apps so you should uninstall them right now

Abhishek Jariwala

5 years ago

We have reported about various malware here and they are all different from each other. Also, this malware have their own unique names as well. However, we are reporting a malware that is named after a villain from Hollywood movies named Joker. Yes, a malware named ‘Joker’ is found inside several Android applications and you will need to uninstall these apps right away from your phone if you have them.

It has been found out that 24 Android applications with thousands of downloads and possibly active installs have a sneaky malware. This malware, named ‘Joker’, signs up users for a subscription service without their willingness or notice. Users who are using their credit cards have been mostly affected by this malware.

Also, the users would not know that they have subscribed to this malware until they check their monthly credit card statements. Once they check their statements, it is often too late and there is no way to cancel the subscription until next month.

Describing the malware, CSIS’s security researcher Aleksejs Kuprins writes:

“For example, in Denmark, Joker can silently sign the victim up for a 50 DKK/week service (roughly ~6,71 EUR). This strategy works by automating the necessary interaction with the premium offer’s webpage, entering the operator’s offer code, then waiting for a SMS message with a confirmation code and extracting it using regular expressions. Finally, the Joker submits the extracted code to the offer’s webpage, in order to authorize the premium subscription.”

Google has already taken action on these apps and have removed it from the Google Play Store. However, these apps have had cumulative installs of more than 450,000 times. This means that at least half of them might have been affected by this malware which is a very generous estimate. Here are all the apps which have been found with this malware: