There is a new malware detected at Google’s Play Store. Named Adult Swine, the malware does something that quite befits it a name; displaying ads depicting pornographic material. The trend has been first detected by security firm Check Point and alerted Google of the issue.
Google, on its part, has been quick to react and said it has removed about 60 gaming apps from the Play Store for displaying ads containing adult oriented materials. If that is not all, many of the apps count children among its target users, which make the offence even more serious as the apps don’t carry any age restrictions and the concerned ads too tend to pop up just about any time.
Also, as with most other malware, Adult Swine lures users into buying premium services or tempted them with lofty promises of free stuff to make users give in to their provocations. Some ads also made users to believe their devices have been affected by a virus and offered them a link to remedy the situation.
In most cases, the link would take users to another app in the Play Store installed which will only aggravate the situation. So users are liable to either lose money or risk losing their personal information. While users in most cases are generally smart enough to ignore such temptations, there are always some who just might give in to it.
However, while it isn’t yet known how many might have been affected by the ads, that the figure could be hard to ignore is evident given that some of the affected app itself have gone for 3 to 7 million times. Google said apps such as ‘Paw Puppy Run Subway Surf’, ‘Shin Hero Boy Adventure Game,’ ‘Drawing Lessons Lego Ninjago,’ and ‘Addon Sponge Bob for MCPE’ are among those that have been affected. These apps are also quite popular with kids. This, in fact, is believed to be a new tactics adopted by the online criminals that otherwise target business sites or government agencies such as hospitals or railways.
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Google meanwhile has clarified the ads aren’t their own. Instead, those have been sourced from the malware maker’s own libraries or a third-party company that again do not allow misuse of their ads.
