Merriam Webster defines “lookout” as:
: a person who watches an area and warns others if there is danger, OR : a high place or structure from which you can see a wide area
And luckily for Android users, there is not only one lookout by the first meaning of the word, but many. As in, the employees of the “Lookout” mobile security firm (former “Flexilis”) with its headquarters in San Francisco.
And boy did they fulfill their function as a lookout. Because they recently announced that they have discovered 20,000 apps that are in fact malware just posing as apps. And which are capable of routing your device automatically and performing their installation all by themselves, with the possibility of also installing other software or apps if so desired by their makers.
These bogus apps or the additional software that they install are, of course, malicious content. Meaning that their purpose is to do something else than what you desired them to do when you downloaded, instead doing what their creator intended. On your device and affecting your data and rights.
Lookout pointed out that at the moment, these apps’ function is to just present you with unwanted ads, with three major families of such adware being identified as possibly working together due to the similar procedures employed when they infect the device. They are: ShiftyBug (Kemoge), Shuanet, and GhostPush (or Shedun), just so you know.
To make things even worse, these malware apps are so good at exploiting the vulnerabilities that exist in the Android operating system that when they root the device and install themselves, they give themselves and other apps or pieces of software that serve their purpose elevated permissions.
In short, they ensure that your system integrity is permanently compromised and the only way to get out of this fix is to reflash the operating system (by yourself or with the help of the company you got the device from), or even the more drastic solution of abandoning your device altogether and getting a new one – an advice that even Lookout agreed might be useful as a last resort.
To make it clear, no, a simple factory reset will not get rid of these nasty apps. They will still be there afterwards.
So the sad part is the fact that even if everybody is now aware to be on a 20000 android malware apps lookout, it doesn’t mean that there is much you can do if one of them manages to infect your mobile.
The only good news is that Lookout says that these apps are predominantly present in other app-stores than Google Play, the latter being relatively safe. For now. Because they estimate the popularity, subtlety and complexity of such apps to grow and spread more, once more hackers realize their lucrative potential.
Image source: 1.
