Various “Beauty Camera” Android app with millions of downloads to collect user information, and push porn ads

Recently, Trend Micro analyst Lorin Wu found dozens of Android cameras apps (some with more than 1 million installs in the Google Play Store) to provide malicious ads and fake software update alerts. At the same time, after the application is installed, these applications will hide the application to ensure it will not be uninstalled.

Image: trendmicro

Lorin Wu sorted these malicious apps in two different categories, one is a beauty camera; while the other is a filter-like camera app. Lorin Wu wrote,

 “A user downloading one of these apps will not immediately suspect that there is anything amiss, until they decide to delete the app. Take, for example, the package com.beauty.camera.project.cloud, which will create a shortcut after being launched. However, it will hide its icon from the application list, making it more difficult for users to uninstall the app since they will be unable to drag and delete it. Furthermore, the camera apps use packers to prevent them from being analyzed.”

Now, these apps were removed by Google on Play Store.