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Google has removed roughly 164 malicious Andriod apps that have been downloaded a total of 10 million times from its Google Play marketplace. Google’s reasoning behind removing the apps is that they were delivering malicious and disruptive advertisements. The move is similar to last year’s crackdown on out-of-context ads. The problems continue to plague the Google Play store, however, despite several different efforts.
One such effort was to prevent malicious developers from submitting their apps to the Google Play marketplace. The WhiteOps Satori Threat Intelligence Team identified the 164 apps and published a report detailing the issues. The team wrote that the apps were designed to mimic legitimate apps in order to amass downloads. Then, the ad displays hundreds of unexpected advertisements. All 164 of the identified apps seemingly attempted to mimic the functions of other popular apps.
Read More: Google Boots 164 Apps from Play Marketplace for Shady Ad Practices