Security News > 2023 > July > Two Spyware Apps on Google Play with 1.5 Million Users Sending Data to China

Two file management apps on the Google Play Store have been discovered to be spyware, putting the privacy and security of up to 1.5 million Android users at risk.

These apps engage in deceptive behaviour and secretly send sensitive user data to malicious servers in China.

The report shows that both spyware apps, namely File Recovery and Data Recovery with over 1 million installs, and File Manager with over 500,000 installs, are developed by the same group.

Contrary to what they claim on the Google Play Store, where both apps assure users that no data is collected, Pradeo's analytics engine has found that various personal information is collected without users' knowledge.

What is particularly alarming is the large amount of data transferred by these spyware apps.

To make matters worse, the developers of these spyware apps have used sneaky techniques to appear more legitimate and make it difficult to uninstall them.

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2023/07/two-spyware-apps-on-google-play-with-15.html