Android operating system can be said to be one of the most used mobile OS all over the world. However, we cannot deny that the Google-backed Android operating system is also vulnerable to attacks and is always at risk of getting hacked. In a recent update, devices working on Android OS are being attacked by the Goldoson malware. This is basically an ad fraud and has already infected 63 applications that have more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store.
For your information, the Goldoson malware is part of a software library that is infecting applications with elements capable of ad fraud. A major highlight regarding the malware is that you will not even get to know that it is operating in the background, tapping on ads without any consent. Moreover, it can also collect data on the applications that are a part of your smartphone’s ecosystem.
According to the report by McAfee, the infected applications on the device receive the configuration via a masked remote server. Moving further, this configuration plays a major role in deciding the boundaries of ad clicking and data stealing from the affected device. It has also been reported that the data from the affected smartphones is transferred to the masked server after every two days. Keeping that in mind, the level of infection is also directly proportional to the type and number of permissions that you have assigned to the infected applications.
Despite having sturdy security layers with Android 11, the Goldoson malware can still affect 10% of the applications available on your device. In a similar manner, the malware performs its ad-clicking activity through HTML code loading in a customized WebView. Moving further in this article, we have mentioned a few applications on the Google Play Store that are infected by the Goldoson malware.
- Money Manager Expense and Budget (10M+)
- Genie Music (10M+)
- Megabox (10M+)
- Compass 9: Smart Compass (1M+)
- Guninday (1M+)
- Item Mania (1M+)
- Infinite Slice (1M+)
- Happy Mobile (1M+)
- Culture Land (5M+)
- TMAP (10M+)
- Swipe Brick Breaker (10M+)
