Fraudulent Apps Removed by Google Were Already Being Blocked by Opticks

Another case of fraudulent apps has recently been uncovered. Google has removed over 30 popular apps from the Play Store after a threat to users was exposed. In this instance, the malicious apps were designed to generate fraudulent advertisement revenues by showing users unwanted ads or redirecting them to websites without their consent. It should also be noted that in some cases, the apps themselves have proven hard to delete once downloaded.  

Officially, all 30 apps were removed on June 3rd 2020 from the Google Play Store. Unfortunately for Android users, it seems like many of them are still installed and executing their purpose perfectly. Such is the case of Lite Beauty Camera (1.000.000 installs), Beauty Collage Lite (500.000 installs) and Solu Camera (500.000 installs) for which we are blocking traffic to this day (June 23rd 2020). 

Considering the number of apps launched every day, not even Google can keep track of the safety of its Play Store users. Online fraud is definitely thriving in such an uncontrolled environment, which makes it easy for fraudsters to infiltrate malware masked as legitimate apps. The safety of your device mostly depends on you, but the integrity of your online advertising campaigns depends on your anti fraud partner of choice.

One step ahead 

At Opticks we successfully detected these fraudulent apps before they were removed from the Play Store. Since we analyze over 2 billion clicks a day, it is not the first time we detect sophisticated fraudulent app traffic before official warnings are issued. Our solutions identified these malicious apps, flagged their traffic with risk level “high” and automatically blocked it from our client’s advertisement campaigns. Ad injection, ad stacking, pixel stuffing or geo masking are most probably the mechanisms encoded into these malicious apps. 

Opticks successfully detects and blocks harmful applications. We protect our client’s ad campaigns and digital budget from invisible threats. Don’t hesitate to ask for a free consultation, get in touch here.