It is suspected that till now, about 36.5 million Android devices have been affected by the malware which has been named ‘Judy‘. The malware was encompassed in some of the apps on the official Google Play Store. The malware was used to produce fake clicks oh advertisements which topped up the wallet of its developers to a great extent.
It was later discovered that the malware was found on as many as 41 apps, all of which were developed by a Korean company Kiniwini and published under the moniker ENISTUDIO Corp.
However, by the time Google removed those apps from the Google Play Store, it had already affected over 5 million users. Some of the apps were available on the Play Store for a number of years which the rest of them were updated recently.
Once the user downloads the app, it stealthily registers the receiver which in turn establishes a connection with the Command and Control server. The server replies with the malicious content comprising of a user-agent string, URLs utilised by the malware developer and a javascript code. It later opens the mentioned URLs in a hidden web page which further redirect to the targeted website through a series of other websites. Then the Javascript code is used to locate the banners and click on them.
Judy encapsulated its deceitful nature under a set of positive reviews. Most of the users of the apps were unknowingly manipulated. Thus, only relying upon Google Play Store for the safety of apps cannot be considered as a credible and efficacious option. The Judy was able to hide itself for so long on the Play Store indicating the vulnerable nature of Android. Judy is not the first malware to cut through the security standards of the Google Play Store.
Earlier this month, a ransomware named “WannaCry” caused a lot of chaos because of its catastrophic nature. WannaCry affected around 105 countries and over 200,000 of Windows users. It mostly affected Windows devices running on older versions of operating systems like Windows XP barring access to the files. Here is how you can protect your computer against ransomware.
The Korean company Kiniwini, also develops apps for the Apple’s iOS. However, no problems have been found with the apps available on the iOS yet. ENISTUDIO Corp. has made over 45 apps for the iOS which are available on the AppStore and most of which have been updated on 31st March, 2017.