Popular Android Driving Sim Games were Actually Malware

By Shane McGlaun

Many mobile users out there hate on Apple for the policies it uses when it comes to allowing apps onto the App Store. Some want the App Store to be more open and easier for devs to get their apps on, but Apple scrutinizes apps before making them available to users. The problem that Google has been unable to address so far with its Google Play app policies is in preventing malware-laden apps for ending up on the Store where they have to be removed later.

Recently 13 game apps that were masquerading as driving simulators were revealed to be malware by a security researcher from ESET called Lukas Stefanko. When the malware was discovered, the apps had been downloaded about 580,000 times combined.

Two of the apps were among the top trending on the Google Play store. Users who downloaded the apps were greeted with what appeared to be a crash prone and buggy app that installed malware in the background. Precisely what that malware was meant to do is unknown.

What is known is that the apps would install the malware and then delete the app icon. The malware had full access to the network traffic of the device it was installed on and could have been used to steal confidential data.