‘Porn-clicker’ malicious apps mimicking popular downloads

Researchers at an internet security firm say they have found 343 “porn clicker-type” malicious apps on Google Play in seven months.

ESET Ireland says criminals are continuing to upload more apps, many of which mimic popular games, on the Android app store.

“Porn clicker Trojans masquerade as legitimate apps, notably fake versions of popular games with very similar names and icons to legitimate applications,” it warned.

“There were more than 30 bogus Subway Surfers and more than 60 fake Grand Theft Auto applications. These apps have nothing in common with the official Subway Surfers or GTA games.”

After installation, the apps run in the background and access pornography websites and click on ads to generate revenue for their operators, robbing advertisers and harming advertising platforms.

“From the user’s point of view, these Trojans generate a lot of internet traffic, which might have negative consequences for users on metered data plans,” it said.

ESET found that, on average, 10 new porn clickers a week bypassed Google’s security checks during the latest campaign and a number of user devices were compromised.

“To get a sense of the scale, ‘porn clickers’ on Google Play have on average, been downloaded 3,600 times each,” it said. It highlighted ways the malicious apps can be thwarted and said users should check the reviews for the apps.

“These fake apps typically have very poor ratings so users have a fair chance of avoiding them”, it said though it said the numbers of downloads show many users often do not care about ratings.

It said some versions of the porn clickers put an anti- virus check on the installed apps and the malicious functionality will not be triggered if security is detected.