The latest report by the Check Point Research reveals that over 1.25 billion Android users are at a risk from an update settings exploit. The scary Android threat concerns over 24 apps with 472,000 installs.
The spyware named ‘Joker’ is can a device and steal SMS, contacts and other sensitive information. It also automatically signs up users for a premium subscription without their consent.
In the blog post, Aleksejs Kuprins, a security researcher from CSIS Security Group said, “The majority of the discovered apps target the EU and Asian countries, however, some apps allow for any country to join. Furthermore, most of the discovered apps have an additional check, which will make sure that the payload won’t execute when running within the US or Canada.”
Google has proactively removed the apps that are affected by this spyware. If you have one of these 24 apps, you should uninstall them at the earliest:
1. Beach Camera 4.2
2. Mini Camera 1.0.2
3. Certain Wallpaper 1.02
4. Reward Clean 1.1.6
5. Age Face 1.1.2
6. Altar Message 1.5
7. Soby Camera 1.0.1
8. Declare Message 10.02
9. Display Camera 1.02
10. Rapid Face Scanner 10.02
11. Leaf Face Scanner 1.0.3
12. Board Picture editing 1.1.2
13. Cute Camera 1.04
14. Dazzle Wallpaper 1.0.1
15. Spark Wallpaper 1.1.11
16. Climate SMS 3.5
17. Great VPN 2.0
18. Humour Camera 1.1.5
19. Print Plant scan
20. Advocate Wallpaper 1.1.9
21. Ruddy SMS Mod
22. Ignite Clean 7.3
23. Antivirus Security – Security Scan,App Lock
24. Collate Face Scanner
According to the CSIS research, the majority of the discovered apps target the Asian and European markets. The countries targeted by the Joker spyware include India, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the U.K.