Google has removed 13 Android apps front he Google Play store after it was notified by users and agencies that these apps made unauthorized downloads to the phones and stole user information. These malicious apps attempt to get root privileges, and also copy files to the system partition. Some of these apps have close to a million downloads. Google removed these apps from the Google Play Store.
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The apps that have been removed include Cake Blast, Jump Planet, Honey Comb, Crazy Block, Crazy Jelly, Tiny Puzzle, Ninja Hook, Piggy Jump, Just Fire, Eat Bubble, Hit Planet, Cake Tower, and Drag Box.
The malicious apps were spotted by a security researcher named Chris Dehghanpoor from Lookout, a mobile security company. According to Dehghanpoor, the Honeycomb app has close to a million downloads. The apps have a high number of downloads, and also have several positive app reviews. The positive reviews get automatically posted without user permission.
Dehghanpoor suggests that if such an app has infected an Android smartphone, the best way to do this would be to factory reset the handset. The apps claim that they were made by developers behind apps like Brain Test.
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In past too, Google has removed apps that were in violation of the Google rules. In past Google removed apps that were replica of original apps of were very similar to some highly downloaded apps. Google took action in past against some apps that were self-downloading getting through the vulnerability of the Google Play Store.
It is said that from a perspective of security, the several flaws in Google's Android platform that could effect several users as data-thieves can steal data using these flaws of the Android platform.
