In reality, apps delivered an endless spiral of ads

Jul 14, 2016 22:35 GMT  ·  By

Following a report from Slovakian security firm ESET, Google has removed from the Play Store several Android apps that promised to deliver a boost in social media followers.

According to ESET, these apps were nothing but fakes that didn't do anything else than collect data on users, show ads, and subscribe them to premium services.

Most apps were promising to deliver social media followers, using specially concocted app names and luring descriptions. Between 500,000 and 1 million users fell for their tricks and installed the applications on their devices.

None of the apps had any functionality

In reality, none of the apps delivered any kind of functionality, except malicious actions. ESET says the apps first started by collecting the user's phone number.

They then asked them to select their type of device and the number of social media followers they wanted to gain.

After this, the app entered in a process called "human verification," which was nothing but a covert method of showing an endless set of ads.

"Verification" process never ended

During the same verification process, the apps also found various ways to collect other kinds of information, such as the victim's name, email address, home address, date of birth, and gender.

Additionally, users were also prompted with popups to accept terms of service or other conditions. In reality, users were consenting to receive telesales calls and text messages from premium services, which usually came at a very high cost of a few Euros per week.

"In fact, this 'verification step' is an endless spiral," ESET's Lukas Stefanko explains. "The only purpose of all those surveys, ads, offers, rewards, prizes, gift coupons and other cheap marketing tricks is to milk as much information and money from 'follower-hungry' users as possible."

ESET says that future apps that will exhibit a similar behavior will be classified and marked as Android/Fasurke malware.

Malicious app in its initial steps
Malicious app in its initial steps

Android/Fasurke malware (5 Images)

Some of the apps that exhibited this behavior
Malicious app in its initial stepsMalicious app asking for human verification
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