The Android ecosystem is no stranger to vicious malware and ransomware attacks. Over the years, this has raised serious privacy and security concerns. While Google has worked for user security and privacy, cyber attackers always find ways around such measures. A recent example of this is the "Goldoson malware" attack, which can lead to ad fraud. The worst part is that all the 63 infected apps are very popular with over 10 million installs.
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The Goldoson malware, which was primarily detected in popular apps in South Korea by McAfee, is part of a program library that had been used by all infected apps unknowingly. According to McAfee's report, the malware is capable of ad fraud. You will not even realize the presence of this malware on your device and it will continue to work in the background and click ads without your consent.
It can collect data about apps installed on your smartphone, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth connected devices. Now, how does it work? The report explains that when you launch one of the infected apps on your device, the Goldoson malware records your device information in its library and receives your device configuration from a masked remote server.
This configuration will be able to determine the parameter of data theft and ad clicking on your device. This includes the frequency of these actions as well as the type of data that the server can access.
