What are the dangers of malware from the Play Store?

Malicious programs are being trumpeted on every corner, and on the Internet they constantly offer to buy an anti-virus program and live in peace. But such a purchase does not provide a 100% guarantee of safety. Technologies develop, and with their growth, new viruses also appear, or rather, they are developed by hackers.

Let’s talk about the Play Store. Every owner of a smartphone with Google services downloads something from this application store. A smartphone without modern programs will be just an ordinary “dialer”. Hackers will not be able to ignore this opportunity and not download their malware.

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At the moment, a virus called “Joker” is operating on Google Play, hiding in some applications of the service. The user downloads the program and a virus penetrates his gadget. After which the user is secretly subscribed to various expensive services with a monthly payment. Money will be debited from your phone accounts or linked bank cards. SMS, contact lists and other confidential data are also intercepted. Stolen data ends up in special databases, which are then sold. In this case, the user may become a potential victim for new scam schemes. Either some photos will be stolen, the user will simply be blackmailed, or they will be leaked somewhere online. The Internet is full of examples of how personal photographs of various media personalities are leaked.

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According to cybersecurity companies, the Joker virus was uploaded by attackers to the Play Store in quantities exceeding 5,000 copies. Even after the malicious program was detected, it was not possible to completely neutralize it. The popular theme of the series, “The Squid Game,” easily helped the malware spread. Users downloaded applications that installed popular screensavers from the series on their smartphone screens. As we know, there are many similar applications. You take your smartphone, unlock it, and there is one screensaver, repeat the steps and another screensaver appears on the screen. This is what happened with the popular theme “Squid Game”.

This is a single example about the Joker virus, but how many other malicious programs are uploaded to the service by hackers every day. Such programs have many goals: to take possession of users’ funds; steal confidential data; intercept information; monitor the user; secretly use the gadget in cryptocurrency mining; display paid advertising on the smartphone screen and the like.

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To protect yourself, you need to follow simple rules: use anti-virus software; Do not click on dubious links and download applications carefully. This means that before downloading the application you are interested in: you need to study the information; read the ratings; read the reviews if this is your first time encountering such a program. If you have any doubts, look for more well-known similar applications, think about whether you really need to download this program of dubious origin. In most cases, the user himself is to blame for the fact that malware penetrates his gadget.

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