Malware has been spread across over 200 apps on the Google Play Store, with almost eight million total downloads between June 2023 and May 2024, according to BleepingComputer.
Most prevalent of the malicious payloads in the downloaded apps — the majority of which were tools — was the Joker information-stealing malware, followed by adware, Facebook account credential stealers dubbed "Facestealer," the Coper infostealer, and the Loanly installer, a report from Zscaler ThreatLabz showed.
India and the U.S. had the most mobile malware infections during the past year, with the education sector being most targeted by such intrusions, researchers reported. Google said that all of the malicious have already been removed from the Play Store while emphasizing the protections provided by Google Play Protect.
"Android users are automatically protected against known versions of malware mentioned in this report by Google Play Protect, which is on by default on Android devices with Google Play Services," said a Google spokesperson.
