If you’ve noticed your Android phone or tablet running slower of late, or perhaps the device is producing a number of irritating pop-ups, then it may be that the device is infected with malware originating from the Google Play Store.
BleepingComputer reported an increasing trend in mobile malware involving the utilization of a dropper, which is a tool that essentially hides code inside of an app.
While the dropper is contained within such applications, it starts out being benign, which makes it more difficult for Google’s standard security tests to detect. As soon as these droppers are on your Android device, over time, they will may import malware to attack in numerous stages. Hackers will sometimes include additional aspects such as the addition of a timer that spaces out deployments of malware and subsequent payloads.
Security researcher Gaetan van Diemen, a security researcher said to BleepingComputer, “It is quite difficult to detect dropper apps. As you can imagine, threat actors will put a lot of energy in keeping those apps undetected.”
There are actually a couple of ways you can keep your device safe. Security experts are recommending keeping your Android device’s operating system updated, being very cautious when it comes to which applications you decide to download from the Google Play Store, and to generally utilise common sense when downloading apps.
Personally, this makes me want to think twice about the apps I choose to download. How about you?