The malware has been discovered by Check Point researchers and has been termed as 'Judy'. Surprisingly, the malware was found in Google's Play Store. Google's system is supposed to work extensively to automatically detect malwares and apps that can pose can risk to the users. It seems it has missed this malware.
While the technicalities have to be still found out, according to the security firm 'Judy' is an "auto clicking adware that uses infected devices to generate large amounts of fraudulent clicks on advertisements, generating revenues for the perpetrators behind it."
Check Point's blog further reveals that the malware was present in almost 41 apps on the Play Store developed by a Korean company and that the malicious apps had already reached an astonishing spread between 4.5 million and 18.5 million downloads.
The security firm also stated, "Some of the apps we discovered resided on Google Play for several years, but all were recently updated. It is unclear how long the malicious code existed inside the apps, hence the actual spread of the malware remains unknown."
Moreover, the firm also found several other apps with the same malware, but these were developed by other developers on Google Play. The firm is assuming that there might have been some connection between the developers. The security firm is still speculating this case.
Besides, the report also states that the malicious code remained hidden for a long time and that it had managed to escape Google scrutiny. What's frightening is that these apps also had large amounts of downloads between 4 and 18 million. Now, this could take the total spread of the malware between 8.5 and 36.5 million users.
However, Check Point did notify Google about this malware and the apps have been removed from the Play store.
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