Cybersecurity experts from the Satori Threat Intelligence team HUMAN Security identified 85 software applications involved in advertising fraud in popular stores. Ten of them were found in Apple App Store or 75 in Google Play.
It is believed to be another cyber fraud campaign, code-named Scylla, which, according to experts, was preceded by "waves" of fraud that were named Poseidon and Charybdis.
It is known that a software of this kind is relatively harmless because it does not infect the devices with viruses directly by demonstrating advertising, and less so to me, such apps can be used by the intruders to distribute another harmful software.
Advertisement software found in App Store:
- Loot the Castle – com.lot.rcastle.fight.battle Tony Runs – com.TonyRuns.game
On Android devices, the list is even larger. The company has already informed Apple and Google of new harmful activity. It is reported that on Android devices, harmful applications impersonating legitimate software are now automatically recognized, unless the Play Protect protection is disabled. In the case of iOS, users should check the existence of harmful applications from the list.
However, the apps do more harm to advertisers than to users. According to available data, there are several fraud schemes, ranging from attempts to sell software for a more popular software with a high price of advertising and clicks to a simple twist of the latter.