Google Play scam apps hit 8MILLION Android phone owners – slowing your phone down and killing its battery

ANDROID users are being warned over dodgy “scam apps” that drain your battery, slow your phone down and take over your screen. As many as 85 different apps from the official Google Play Store have been branded “fraudulent”. Most of the dodgy downloads are either photo-editing apps or games. And security firm Trend Micro says they’ve been downloaded more than eight million times in total.The apps are known as “adware”, created by crooks to earn money by flooding your phone with advertisements. All of the apps have now been removed from the Play Store, but may still be lurking on your phone. Typically, adware programs will run ads in the background on your phone These silent ads won’t show up for you, but will slow your phone down and drain battery life.This will generate quick cash for scam app crooks at your expense. But Trend Micro researchers note that this latest group of dodgy apps had another sneaky trick. “It isn’t your run-of-the-mill adware family,” said Trend Micro’s Ecular Xu. “If the app has determined that it has been installed for more than 30 minutes, the app will then hide its icon and create a shortcut on the device’s home… Read full this story

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