Several Popular Beauty Camera Apps Caught Stealing Users’ Photos

Just because an app is available on Google Play Store doesn’t
mean that it is a legitimate app. Despite so many efforts by
Google, some fake and malicious apps do sneak in and land millions
of unaware users on the hunting ground of scammers and hackers.

Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro uncovered at least 29 devious
photo apps that managed to make its way onto Google Play Store and
have been downloaded more than 4 million times before Google
removed them from its app store.

The mobile apps in question disguised as photo editing and
beauty apps purporting to use your mobile phone’s camera to take
better pictures or beautify the snaps you shoot, but were found
including code that performs malicious activities on their users’
smartphone.

Three of the rogue apps—Pro Camera Beauty, Cartoon Art Photo and
Emoji Camera—have been downloaded more than a million times each,
with Artistic Effect Filter being installed over 500,000 times and
another seven apps in the list over 100,000 times.

Once installed, some of these apps would push full-screen
advertisements on victim’s device for fraudulent or pornographic
content every time the infected phone is unlocked, and some would
even redirect victims to phishing sites in an attempt to steal
their personal information by tricking them into believing they
have won a contest.

29 Fake Android Apps – Ones to Look Out For

Another group of camera apps that specifically meant to beautify
photos were actually found including malicious code that uploads
user’s photos to an external remote server controlled by the app
maker.

However, instead of displaying a final result with the edited
photo, the app serves users with a fake update prompt in nine
different languages which lead, again, to a phishing site.

In an attempt to hide their activities, some of these apps used
various methods, including hiding the app icon from the
drawer/launcher, which would make it more difficult for regular
users to spot and uninstall the offending apps.
After being made aware of the malicious apps, Google removed them
from its Play Store, but this is unlikely to prevent malicious apps
from plaguing the Android app store in the future.

Android malware continues to evolve with more sophisticated and
never-seen-before capabilities with every passing day, and spotting
them on Google Play Store doesn’t come up as a surprise.

The best way to prevent yourself from falling victim to such
fishy applications in the future is always to download apps from
trusted brands only, even when downloading from the official app
store.

Moreover, look at the app reviews left by other users before
downloading any app and avoid those that mention any suspicious
behavior or unwanted pop-ups after installing.

Last but not least, always keep a good antivirus app on your
Android device that can detect and block such malicious activities
before they can infect your device, and keep them up-to-date.