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Google has removed 25 apps from Play Store for phishing Facebook Users Details

Android powers more than five times as many smartphones and tablets as iOS. As a result, the number of apps on the Google Play Store is considerably higher than Apple’s App Store and that makes the app review process less rigorous for Android. Predictably, that allows many malicious apps to pass through the review process much more easily and remain on the Play Store until reported for chicanery. Google, however, does act promptly in removing malicious apps, especially when it comes to serious allegations like phishing. The internet giant has now struck down 25 apps for deceiving users and logging Facebook login credentials, as per a recent report.

French cyber-security agency Evina recently reported 25 malicious apps to Google in May for siphoning off users’ Facebook login details. This was accomplished by creating a faux login page on top of the actual Facebook’s login page. The malicious elements were disguised by legit functionality in these apps. Evina notes that these apps were masquerading as wallpaper apps, image and video editors, flashlight apps, games, and file managers on the Google Play Store.

Fake Facebook login page in the overlay; Image courtesy of Evina

The French agent also told ZDNet that some of these malicious apps had been on the Google Play Store for over a year. Google removed them after validating the findings in early June. While removing apps from the Play Store, Google also disables them on users’ smartphones and informs them through the Play Protect feature.

The list of apps removed by Google includes:

App Name Package No. of installs
Super Wallpapers Flashlight com.wallpaper.flashlight.compass 500000+
Padenatef com.sun.newjbq.beijing.ten 500000+
Wallpaper Level com.liapp.level 100000+
Contour level wallpaper com.communication.walllevel 100000+
iPlayer & iWallpaper com.ldl.videoedit.iwallpapers 100000+
Video Maker com.androidapp.videosedit.v 100000+
Color Wallpapers com.play.ljj.wallpapercomapss 100000+
Pedometer com.baidu.news.pedometer 100000+
Powerful Flashlight com.meituanybw.flash 100000+
Super Bright Flashlight com.tqyapp.sb.flashlight 100000+
Super Flashlight com.superapp.xincheng 100000+
Solitaire Game com.game.tqsolitaire 100000+
Accurate scanning of Meade com.tqyapp.qr 50000+
Classic card game com.card.solitairenew 50000+
Junk file cleaning com.xdapp.cleaning 50000+
Synthetic Z com.tqygame.synthetic 50000+
File Manager com.smt.filemanager 50000+
Composite Z com.game.hcz 50000+
Screenshot Capture com.tianqiyang.lww.screenedit 10000+
Daily Horoscope Wallpapers com.tianqiyang.lww.constellation 10000+
Wuxia Reader com.wuxia.reader 10000+
Plus Weather com.plus.android.weather 10000+
Anime Live Wallpaper com.tqyapp.chuangtai 100
iHealth Step Counter com.tiantian.lang.tencent
com.tgyapp.fiction com.tgyapp.fiction

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