Google today said it has removed from the Play Store applications which have committed serious privacy breaches. At least 9 applications have been deleted after security investigators discovered they had Trojans that stole Facebook credentials.
Combined together the apps were downloaded 5.8 million times and some of them were popular like “Daily Horoscope” and “Rubbish Cleaner”.
Applications manipulated users using the real Facebook login interface while running a JavaScript code in the background that stole credentials.
Five different malware variants were identified and all used the same JavaScript code. Google said it had expelled the developers of these applications.
The main concern, however, is how such applications received so many downloads before being expelled. Google says it constantly scans for malware on the PlayStore but on the other hand the methods of manipulation and theft of information are as sophisticated as in the case of these applications.
It is important to be careful with downloading applications despite the high number of downloads they may have. / PCWorld Albanian