Malicious Android apps with 19M installs removed from Google Play

Seventy-seven malicious Android apps with more than 19 million installs were delivering multiple malware families to Google Play users.

This malware infiltration was discovered by Zscaler's ThreatLabs team while investigating a new infection wave with Anatsa (Tea Bot) banking trojan targeting Android devices.

While most of the malicious apps (over 66%) included adware components, the most common Android malware was Joker, which researchers encountered in almost 25% of the analyzed apps.

Once Joker malware is installed on a device, it can read and send text messages, take screenshots, make phone calls, and steal contact lists, access device information, and subscribe users to premium services.

A smaller percentage of the apps included maskware, a term used to define a malicious app th