Android users urged to check devices after 224 apps hit by cyber fraud attack

Cyber criminals are once more setting their sights on Android devices in an attempt to dupe unsuspecting victims into surrendering their personal and financial details.

Users are being warned to delete apps that have been infiltrated by the latest scam straight away, which sees hackers executing a complex form of advertising fraud. By bombarding apps with malicious adverts, hackers can degrade the performance of the devices they've infiltrated whilst lining their own pockets.

The latest attack was uncovered by the Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team and has been labelled 'SlopAds'. Researchers have discovered that 224 Android apps were impacted by this assault, which have been downloaded more than 38 million times through the Google Play Store app.

Security experts from the team disclosed: "HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team has uncovered and disrupted a sophisticated ad fraud and click fraud operation dubbed SlopAds. The threat actors behind SlopAds operate a collection of 224 apps and growing, collectively downloaded from Google Play more than 38 million times across 228 countries and territories.

"These apps deliver their fraud payload using steganography and create hidden WebViews to navigate to threat actor-owned cashout sites, generating fraudulent ad impressions and clicks. The threat actors' infrastructure and many of the apps an AI theme, contributing to the name of the operation.", reports the Mirror .

It's vital to note that Google has successfully eradicated all the troublesome apps, ensuring no new users will be ensnared by ad fraud. Those worried having downloaded an application infected with the SlopAds bug have been reassured that all those affected will receive a notification urging them to uninstall the apps, according to the Daily Record.

To shield against future threats, all Android users are being counselled to keep Google's Play Protect feature activated within the app store. This function will warn users potentially compromised applications prior to installation, while also blocking any subsequent apps exhibiting behaviour associated with SlopAds.

"Ad fraud may be the byproduct of developers implementing ads in disallowed ways, such as showing hidden ads, automatically clicking ads, altering or modifying information and otherwise leveraging non-human actions (spiders, bots, etc.) or human activity designed to produce invalid ad traffic. Invalid traffic and ad fraud is harmful to advertisers, developers, and users, and leads to long-term loss of trust in the mobile Ads ecosystem."

Android users are being urged to act quickly and remove any applications identified as compromised to protect their devices.