Google Play Store

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Russia wants to clone popular services like the Google Play Store – good luck with that

April 1st, 2022

Andy Meek

Software developers and engineers in Russia have been given an impossible task by the goons in Vladimir Putin’s government. It’s basically an end of days assignment, reflecting the severity of Mother Russia having been decoupled from the rest of the world following its shocking and disastrous invasion of Ukraine. In the weeks since then, popular …

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These Android and iOS apps are robbing people blind

March 28th, 2021

Andy Meek

These days, there are so many scam alerts, hackers trying to sneak malicious apps onto app store platforms, and legitimate-looking apps that turn out to be anything but, that the app stores have become something of a digital minefield for consumers. Apps that can drain your bank account, steal your login credentials, and bombard you …

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Warning: These Android apps can steal your bank details and take over your phone

March 10th, 2021

Andy Meek

Researchers on Tuesday published a serious warning for Android device owners, alerting them to the discovery of eight dangerous apps in the Google Play Store that could have allowed an attacker to take over a victim’s smartphone as well as drain their bank account. That’s according to Check Point Research, which said in its report …

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Delete this Android app right now

February 16th, 2021

Andy Meek

Reports are circulating this week about a new Android app to be wary of — it’s called SHAREit, an app that has both an iOS and Android version, and it’s been downloaded from the Google Play Store more than 1 billion times. The security firm Trend Micro issued a report about the app that cites …

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This ‘Joker’ Android malware sounds like something a heinous villain would design

July 14th, 2020

Andy Meek

Google has removed another batch of Android apps from the Google Play Store after analysts with Check Point Research discovered these apps connected to the Joker malware that’s previously bedeviled Google’s app marketplace. In the past, the Joker malware has been responsible for everything from stealing SMS messages to spyware. This comes as a number …

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56 Android apps with malware were downloaded 1 million times before being discovered

March 25th, 2020

Yoni Heisler

Android malware is arguably less prevalent than it was a few years ago, but it still remains a serious and all too common issue. Recently, 56 Android apps with malware were discovered on Google Play. Together, these apps were downloaded more than one million times. As Google slowly but surely looks to keep a closer …

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Delete these nasty Android apps that can log in to your Google and Facebook accounts right now

February 7th, 2020

Andy Meek

No sooner did we report on Wednesday the presence of a new batch of scammy Android apps that had to be removed from the Google Play Store (but not before racking up some 382 million downloads), than yet another wave of such apps has emerged to be aware of. And to remove from your phone, …

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Google is finally cutting down on Android app notification overload

January 15th, 2020

Andy Meek

For a few months now, Android users have been taking to Reddit and Google Support forums to question the seeming disappearance of Google Play Store notifications that should have notified them of the successful completion of an app update. “I’ve noticed recently that notifications that you have app updates available as well as the notifications …

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Make sure you don’t have any of these 17 sketchy Google Play apps on your phone

January 15th, 2020

Andy Meek

The Google Play Store’s unending game of sketchy app whack-a-mole shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, as researchers with cybersecurity company Bitdefender on Tuesday ID’d a total of 17 Google Play apps — with more than half a million installs between them — as using multiple tricks to serve users with unwanted ads. …

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Google finally gets serious about protecting you from malicious Android apps

November 7th, 2019

Andy Meek

Every so often, we report on discoveries from security researchers who warn of newly identified batches of bad Android apps, often only after they’ve racked up millions of downloads. Back in September, for example, we mentioned this discovery by researchers at Wandera of a group of apps that requested sketchy permissions and included intrusive ads, …