Powerful Android Adware Makes Its Way Into the Google Play Store

Six apps from a developer named ValerySoftware have found their way into the official Google Play Store and have infected at least 3,000 users, based on their current download counts. The apps, discovered and reported this week by Intel McAfee security experts, are nothing more but hollow shells providing no functionality at all, except for the malicious features. Apps specialized in showing ads, downloading & installing other apps Advertised as all sorts of Minecraft mods, the apps are capable of collecting sensitive information from the phone, downloading Android apps from external sources or the Google Play Store. The malicious apps can also install the previously downloaded apps, uninstall them, and open or close applications on demand, based on commands received from a central command server. Additionally, the malicious app will use advertising SDKs to load and show ads from various vendors, silently tapping the ads behind the scenes.