Android’s malware problem is as old as time, but despite The best efforts of Google, the official Play Store of the mobile platform, is constantly threatened. We are talking about threats to everything from the general stability of your phone to your confidential personal information, login credentials on social media and, most irritatingly, your bank account balance.
This particular Joker iteration is not as entertaining as it sounds
Latest Android apps found to be infected with Joker malware
While the report doesn’t name all of the apps in question as they might appear on their Android phones, their published package names should give you a good idea of their marketed identity.
Here we are talking about a wide range of use cases, ranging from an image compression tool to a memory training game, a collection of flower themed wallpapers, a file recovery application and some kind of relaxation title.
If you recall installing something incomplete that matches any of those descriptions, you should check your credit and mobile card bills for unauthorized purchases and especially suspicious subscriptions. That’s the most common way that this “Joker” malware scams you, and unfortunately getting your money back is generally quite difficult.
Unsubscribe, delete and be careful
What you can and should do is to immediately unsubscribe from any “premium” service or platform that you do not recognize, and most importantly, remove each and every suspicious application from your phone as soon as possible. You can also (generally) avoid future security breaches by installing a trusted antivirus solution and expect it to do a better job of detecting such threats than Google Play Store protection algorithms, machine learning tools, and human experts.
Unfortunately, Check Point investigators hope that Joker will continue to lurk in the dark as we speak, modifying his sneaky form and behavior to remove Google obstacles and steal the hard-earned money, as well as everything from his text messages to contact lists and device information. . All that can and will be used against him in different ways, yes, which highlights one thing. It’s a scary mobile world, folks, and the only ones who can keep you out of harm’s way are … yourselves.
Be careful what you download, and even if you exclusively use the Play Store for that, be aware of what kind of information your applications can access, as well as your credit card balance. Trust no one, especially the unnamed developers behind apps with poor review scores.
