Some cybersecurity researchers have uncovered over 10,000 apps that hide a backdoor. Here are the risks you run and how to defend yourself
Many times we’ve talked and reported about viruses hidden inside apps in the Google Play Store. In most cases, these are adware, viruses that display misleading advertisements on the smartphone screen, which can also activate paid subscriptions. This time, however, the topic is different: we’re not talking about infected apps, but about dangerous applications that could steal personal data from users.
A group of European and US researchers has developed a tool that analyzes app code to find possible fouls or the presence of backdoors. The latter term is the one that’s a bit trickier for those who aren’t very computer literate. Backdoors are codes or commands that allow developers to access software to perform maintenance on a program or application. Backdoors, however, are problematic to manage: if a hacker knew the secret code to access them, he could steal all the users’ data. That’s why developers prefer to find more secure alternatives.
The group of researchers, however, found a worrying number of apps that hide a backdoor or master passwords to access the code: out of more than 150,000 apps analyzed, more than 12,000 have security problems. And we’re not talking about apps with few downloads, but the most downloaded apps on the Google Play Store and other third-party Android stores.
What are the dangerous Android apps
Analyzing the data released by the research group, a rather worrying picture emerges: more than 12,000 apps hide a backdoor, more than 7,000 apps have secret codes to access the code and more than 6,000 use commands to gain administrator privileges. Finally, 500 apps are defended by master passwords to defend access to the code. These figures might seem insignificant, but they actually hide a bitter truth: many Android apps are not secure and use outdated cybersecurity systems.
Another thing to keep in mind is the type of apps that were analyzed. In fact, the researchers looked at the top 100,000 most downloaded apps on the Google Play Store, the top 20,000 from third-party stores and more than 30,000 apps pre-installed on Samsung smartphones.
The names of the apps were not disclosed, but we know there is definitely a remote control app with more than 10.
The names of the apps have not been disclosed, but we do know that there is definitely an app for remote control with over 10,000,000 downloads and an app for live streaming (which is very popular these days) with over 5,000,0000 downloads.
What are the risks and how to defend yourself
What do users actually risk? Is there any need to worry? The risks are high: if a hacker managed to discover the secret commands or to penetrate the backdoor, he could easily steal users’ data and sell them on the dark web. A real danger, but users have no means to defend themselves, as not even a good antivirus could do anything against this kind of hacker attack.
Researchers immediately contacted the developers to report the various problems, but they didn’t always get a response.