The Android ecosystem has been a target for malicious malware and ransomware attacks for years. This has resulted in serious privacy and security concerns. Despite Google’s efforts to improve user security and privacy, cyber attackers always find ways to get around such measures. The latest example of this is the “Goldoson malware” attack, which is capable of ad fraud. What’s worse is that all 63 infected apps are popular and have over 10 million installs.

Do Not Fall for These Goldoson malware Infected Android Apps

McAfee recently detected the Goldoson malware primarily in popular Android apps in South Korea. The malware is part of a software library that was unknowingly used by all the infected apps. According to McAfee’s report, the malware operates in the background without your knowledge, clicking ads without your consent.

Goldoson can collect data on the apps installed on your smartphone, as well as your Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth-connected Android devices. Whenever you launch any of the infected apps on your device, the malware registers your device information into its library and receives your device configuration from a masked remote server. This configuration will determine the parameter of data-stealing and ad-clicking on your device. The malware can access sensitive data from 10% of the apps, despite the robust security measures of Android 11 and above.

McAfee has worked with Google to proactively contact developers to fix this issue and remove infected Android apps from the Play Store. However, the risk is still very real. If you have any of these apps installed, it is best to uninstall them and format your device. Below are some of the infected apps:

• L.POINT with L.PAY (10M+)
• Swipe Brick Breaker (10M+)
• Money Manager Expense & Budget (10M+)
• TMAP (10M+)
• Lotte Cinema (10M+)
• Genie Music (10M+)
• Culture Land (5M+)
• GOM Player (5M+)
• Megabox (5M+)
• LIVE Score, Real-Time Score (5M+)
• Pikicast (5M+)
• Compass 9: Smart Compass (1M+)
• GOM Audio – Music, Sync lyrics (1M+)
• GOM TV – All About Video (1M+)
• Guninday (1M+)
• LOTTE WORLD Magicpass (1M+)
• Item Mania (1M+)
• Bounce Brick Breaker (1M+)
• Infinite Slice (1M+)
• Pump (1M+)
• SomNote – Beautiful note app (1M+)
• Korea Subway Info: Metroid (1M+)
• GOODTV (1M+)
• UBhind: Mobile Tracker Manager (1M+)
• Happy mobile (1M+)
• Mafu Driving (1M+)

Protect your device from the Goldoson malware by staying away from these apps. Learn more about the Goldoson malware from the McAfee website.