It's Friday, boys and girls, but while most "regular" people are probably looking forward to getting a couple of days of rest or relaxing with their friends after another long work week, Android users constantly worried about their mobile security and data privacy might be starting to notice a very concerning news pattern.
If it feels like a new group of vicious apps aiming to steal your most sensitive information or hard-earned cash or just bombard your phone with intrusive ads is being discovered every single week lurking in the Play Store shadows, that's... pretty much right on the money.
For what it's worth, the latest such collection of harmful Google Play titles is a little smaller than the previous two families of Android malware found to be wreaking havoc on millions of devices around the world. Also, the 11 apps listed below have only managed to gather a collective total of around 620,000 downloads before they were all booted out of the Play Store, which believe it or not is a fairly low number by Android malware standards nowadays.
On the not so bright side of things, the malicious behaviour exhibited by these newly exposed apps is not limited to something relatively harmless-sounding like running ads in the background, instead ripping off users by subscribing them to various bogus services without warning or asking for approval. That's... about as bad as this stuff can get and the worst thing is all the subscribing activity goes on in an "invisible" web browser.
Delete the following apps immediately!
Beauty Camera Plus (com.beauty.camera.plus.photoeditor)
Impressionism Pro Camera (com.impressionism.prozs.app)
Microclip Video Editor (com.microclip.vodeoeditor)
Night Mode Camera Pro (com.urox.opixe.nightcamreapro)
Photo Camera Editor (com.toolbox.photoeditor)
Photo Effect Editor (com.picture.pictureframe)
Those are both the "marketing" names and, in brackets, the package names of the latest apps investigated and found guilty of "fleecing" users by Kaspersky security researchers to make their discovery and uninstallation easier for all of you.
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This was the most popular of the 11 malicious Android apps listed above.
But while you are obviously advised, nay, urged to get rid of any and all malicious apps identified on your phone immediately after said identification, that may not always be enough to completely eliminate the threat and stop paying handsome sums of money for services you don't need or in fact use.
When dealing with such a sneaky type of malware that can go weeks or even months on end running and evolving in the background without leaving any traces of its illicit activity, it's important to also install a (legit) antivirus program and perform a thorough clean of your operating system after deleting everything suspicious you can find on the surface.
How to stay protected going forward
Unfortunately, there is no single miraculous solution for your frequent Android security issues and scares. But you can be more careful about every single thing you install from Google Play, as well as only use official app stores from companies like Big G and Amazon to do that.
You can read more reviews to check for red flags, wait for an app to amass a large number of downloads before installing it yourself or try a more popular alternative, as well as generally stay away from titles with a lot of 5-star user ratings and very few or very similar detailed reviews.
In the particular case of this "Fleckpe" family of subscription Trojans containing the 11 titles listed above, as well as similar fleeceware collections like Joker and Harly, you should pay very close attention to the balance in your bank account and digital wallet to try to nip any and all attempts at unauthorized subscriptions in the bud. That is, of course, if you care about your money in addition to your general mobile and online security.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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