So for years, we know Android products are venerable to malware. It’s a little better now, but the threat is making a comeback. Android malware is back: the new threat.
Because in the last few days, cyber security company Symantec found not one, but seven different rouge apps. We all thought these fake apps were gone. However, they just got a new publisher. Also, the fake apps are just changing names. Furthermore, these dangerous apps pretended to be productive and even use Google’s imagery in order to hide their real cause. They pretend to be legit. In fact, they even look friendly enough. But in reality, all they want to do is promote scams and infect malware to our devices.
There is good news here. Google took these fake apps down. But they still don’t know how these bad apps got through in the first place. This is especially troublesome after they worked months to make Android products malware free. Or should I say, to make them more malware free. Plus, this kind of malware slipped into Google Play. That’s even more alarming because this rarely happens to Google Play. Yes, malware sneaks in there once in a while. But rarely does it come back as a new strain of malware. In most cases, it shouldn’t be as easy as a name change. But that’s what happened here.
Did I title this blog wrong saying Android malware is back? Should I say, “Android malware never left”? Because not just here, but in IT support in general, we see this a lot. For example, we treat a malware threat. But a year or two later, that same threats comes back because hackers come up with a new way to threaten your computer. It is one of the biggest reasons we have laptops fixed. If Android malware threatened your computer, what would you do?