Google Gets Rid Of Apps Stealing Facebook Logins And Passwords

Google has reportedly given the boot to 9 popular android apps from the Play Store which were being used to steal Facebook login credentials and passwords.

A team of researchers who work for Doctor Web, a Russia headquartered anti-malware company, found that the apps contained different variations of the Android.PWS.Facebook trojan malware that’s commonly used by cyber thieves and hackers to gain access to an individual’s social media credentials.


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In detail, the Doctor Web analysts explained in their findings that the tainted apps functioned as expected with a view to lowering the vigilance of potential victims.

Once in the app, users were offered the option to unlock full functionality and disable in-app advertisements by logging in with their Facebook profiles. If chosen to do so, users were then presented with a realistic Facebook login form, after which the malware’s Javascript passed stolen login details to the trojan applications, which later transferred the data to the hacker behind the attacks.

There were five malware variants in the blend somewhere in there, but all of them used the same script/code for swiping user-info. Doctor Web identified the following trojan variants:

  • Android.PWS.Facebook.13
  • Android.PWS.Facebook.14
  • Android.PWS.Facebook.15
  • Android.PWS.Facebook.17
  • Android.PWS.Facebook.18

For those who’re curious which apps were laced with the malware, Google removed the following ones from the Play Store and also banned the publishers who developed them:

  1. PIP Photo (5,000,000+ downloads)
  2. Processing Photo (500,000+ downloads)
  3. Rubbish Cleaner (100,000+ downloads)
  4. Inwell Fitness (100,000+ downloads)
  5. Horoscope Daily (100,000+ downloads)
  6. App Lock Keep (50,000+ downloads)
  7. Lockit Master (5,000+ downloads)
  8. Horoscope Pi (1,000 downloads)
  9. App Lock manager (10 downloads)

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Although it’s still unclear how these apps managed past Google’s near-impeccable screening system, perhaps what’s more important is that you should be more careful about downloading apps/tools from unknown developers, regardless of how popular they are.

Did you come across any such apps on your phone? Let us know in the comments section below.



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