Millions of Android owners warned over malicious apps

Millions of Android users are being urged to check their phones after experts found almost a dozen apps have been hijacked my malicious viruses.

According to the experts at Security firm Kaspersky, 11 seemingly innocent apps available on the Google Play Store are actually a devious new type of malware, called Fleckpe.

These apps are mostly for photo and video editing, and are known as the Photo Effect Editor and Beauty Slimming Photo Editor.

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Fleckpe data suggests the software has been active since 2022.

While the apps have since been removed from Google Play, they have already been installed on more than 620,000 devices worldwide and are said to have taken users’ money without permission.

“Every once in a while, someone will come across malicious apps on Google Play that seem harmless at first,” developer Dmitry Kalinin wrote on the Kaspersky SecureList website.

“Some of the trickiest of these are subscription Trojans, which often go unnoticed until the user finds they have been charged for services they never intended to buy.

“This kind of malware often finds its way into the official marketplace for Android apps.”

Kaspersky has a list of the 11 apps’ package names, which refers to the code that uniquely identifies each one on devices and the Google Play store.

Anyone with the 11 apps installed should delete them immediately before they sign users up to a paid subscription option without their knowledge.

Delete now

The Mirror names the apps as:

• Beauty Camera Plus
• Beauty Photo Camera
• Beauty Slimming Photo Editor
• Fingertip Graffiti
• GIF Camera Editor
• HD 4K Wallpaper
• Impressionism Pro Camera
• Microclip Video Editor
• Night Mode Camera Pro
• Photo Camera Editor
• Photo Effect Editor