“When good apps go bad” seems to be the name of the digital game these days. The great suspended The browser extension recently showed its true colors, and now joining it in the malware purgatory is the long-preferred application for Android “Barcode Scanner” – despite the more than 10 million installations.
Our usual tips apply, with an important caveat: if you’ve installed the barcode scanner on your Android device and Google hasn’t already removed the app on your behalf, now is as good a time as any to get rid of it. of her. However, make sure you get rid of the right one. Malwarebytes’ recent report describes the Barcode Scanner application from Lavabird:
“… in the case of the barcode scanner, malicious code was added that was not in previous versions of the application. In addition, the added code used a strong blur to avoid detection. To verify this is from the same application developer, we confirmed that it was signed by the same digital certificate as the previous clean versions. Due to its malicious intent, we went from our original Adware detection category directly to Trojan, with Android / Trojan.HiddenAds.AdQR detection. ”
There is another barcode scanning application from ZXing, which does not come with malware (as of this writing). You’re probably thinking about the Barcode Scanner app, because it’s available for Android practically as long as the operating system existed. It is good to use, although it is obtained revisited-bombed in hell because people assume it is the malware application of the same name. Sigh.
How can you check which is which? If you can’t find out from the app icon, you can always pull up Settings> Applications and notifications> See all … applications> Barcode scanner, then press Advanced> Application Details, which should take you to the Google Play Store registration. (The steps for your specific Android device may differ slightly). If your registration in the Google Play Store does not exist, you have a bad Barcode Scanner application and you should remove it right now.
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What if you were wondering if you could do something about the malicious barcode scanner? Not quite, not exactly. If an application has built an established presence in the Google Play Store, provides a useful service and has not been a problem for several years, there is nothing to reveal about a developer purpose to take advantage of all this benevolence for harmful means.
Sure, you’ll notice that something is weird when your device starts working – a browser is launched without any interaction from you, in this case – but it will be difficult to identify what is causing this problem. Generally speaking, you’ll want to see which of your apps have been recently updated and start digging, but it’s also possible that an app that was updated a few months ago will trigger some sort of malware or other shady practice (with hopes that he will not be caught).
It probably wouldn’t hurt to install an app like that Anti-Malware for Malwarebytes and run it from time to time; this can at least alert you if the apps on your device are acting suspiciously recently. Not even you need the premium version of the application: Regular free scans should be good (along with the application’s privacy audit feature). You can aAlso consider Sophos Intercept X, full advertising Avast Antivirusand more.
While I feel it is something rare the situation of having an app gets dishonest like this and probably one that doesn’t guarantee a real-time scanner running on your device never hurts to have a few such tools that sit around, if your phone starts to do something weird. If yes, scan, check to see which applications have recently been updated, and run a few web searches to see if you can identify yourself Problem. Chances are that if your phone is spamming, there is an application to blame.