Dangerous Malware in Popular CamScanner App, Instant Uninstall

If your smartphone also has the CamScanner app then there needs to be an alert. The Google Play store has faced criticism in the past few weeks as malware has been found in many apps on it. Such popular apps have been downloaded by millions of users from all over the world. In a similar revelation, Kaspersky researchers have reported the CamScanner app. Researchers have said that the phone-based PDF Creator CamScanner app also offers the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature and has over 100 million downloads, and the ad library with malicious modules was also being downloaded across devices with this app.

Researchers said that CamScanner was previously an all-purpose app and had no malicious intent. App developers at that time used Openly Ads to generate normal commercials and used in-app purchases to generate additional revenue. However, this situation changed after a while. According to the researchers, the malicious module now available with the app is 'Trojan-Dropper'. This means that the malware is designed with a motive like a delivery mechanism.

The app can install malware

Dropper installs the malware on users' devices, which can range from stealing banking details to clicking fake ads and signing up for fake subscriptions. Researchers from the Kaspersky team who discovered this flaw in the app had earlier found Trojan.Dropper.AndroidOS.Necro.n malware pre-installed in some apps on Chinese smartphones. Some users have already reported such behavior from Google and in one version of the app, the app has been removed from Google Play after spotting this malware and reporting it to Google.

Google is preparing a mechanism

Researchers report that CamScanner has removed this malware module in the latest version but different versions can be found on different devices and many of them contain malicious code. Google is preparing a new mechanism to scan and remove such apps on its Play Store, but developers designing apps associated with such malware are seen to be several steps ahead. Google Play Protect Guard has been designed by Google in 2018. This guard on the Play Store claims to rapidly scan and delete malicious apps. Even before publishing a new app on the Play Store, Google is scanning them and taking at least 3 days for this.