Catalin Cosoi, Global Research Director at antivirus solutions provider Bitdefender says there is a growing problem of legitimate smartphone apps being swapped with malware after achieving positive ratings.
“Third-party Android markets have always been the favorite means of malicious app dissemination, especially in regions like Asia, where users don’t have access to the official repository,” he said.
“This is also the case with the latest campaign laid out by cyber-crooks to lure users into installing well-known applications on the genuine Android Market, but which have been tampered with in order to launch additional services along with the original app.”
Cosoi added: “Shortly put, the original Android application downloaded from a third-party location contains “the real deal” as well as a Trojanised service (usually called “GoogleServicesFrameworkService”), which is launched as soon as the host application is started.”