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Google's security measures failed to find Android malware in Play Store
Google may have introduced a number of security measures to prevent malicious apps from appearing in the Play Store, but they're not watertight. New analysis from Check Point shows that earlier this year, malware was lurking within 56 apps that had been downloaded almost one million times worldwide – its objective, to commit mobile ad fraud.
Google bans developer with half a billion app downloads from Play Store
Google is banning a major Android developer DO Global and removing its apps from the Google Play Store after it was discovered the company was committing ad fraud. Nearly half of the developer's more than 100 apps have already been removed from Google's app marketplace and it's expected the rest will disappear in the coming days, according to BuzzFeed. Apps published by DO Global, which is in part owned by massive Chinese tech firm Baidu, have racked up more than 600 million downloads in the Play Store.
Google pulls popular Chinese Android apps over large-scale ad fraud
Google pulled a number of popular Android apps from the Play Store after BuzzFeed News has discovered a large-scale ad fraud scheme their developers were pulling off. Six of those apps were by DU Group, a developer that spun off from Chinese tech giant Baidu a year ago. (Baidu, however, still owns 34 percent of the company.) DU's properties include the immensely popular Selfie Camera app that's been downloaded over 50 million times from the Play Store. Ad fraud researcher Check Point found that it contains code that causes the app to automatically click on advertisements without the user's knowledge.
Android ad fraud scheme drained users' batteries and data
BuzzFeed News has confirmed a massive ad fraud scheme, which was originally uncovered by at least two fraud detection firms, that drained users' batteries and data. The scheme begins by hijacking the in-app advertisements of developers using Twitter's MoPub ad platform. It then silently runs autoplaying video ads behind legit banner advertisements, with the users being none the wiser. And since the video ads are still marked as completed even though none of the viewers got to see them, the scheme also rips off hapless advertisers.
