Google suspends 85 adware apps from Play Store downloaded a total of 9 mn times

Google Play Store has yet again been found to have malicious apps and millions of people have downloaded them.According to a report by the researchers at security firm Trend Micro, a total of 85 adware apps, were disguised as game, TV, and remote control simulator apps on the Google Play store. The 85 fake apps have been downloaded a total of 9 million times.Adware is a term used to describe a form of malware which presents unwanted advertisements to the user of a device. The adware can also monitor a device’s screen unlocking functionality, and run in the mobile device’s background, as a means of making money out of unwary Android users.Google has now suspended the fake apps from its Play store.[caption id="attachment_5861411" align="alignnone" width="1280"]

Google Play Store Logo.[/caption]This is not the first time Google is being held up for malware apps.Last month, the company reportedly removed a total of 22 apps from the Google Play store because they were found to be containing device-draining backdoors which allowed them to download files secretly from a server which was attacker-controlled. The apps altogether have been download for over 2 million times.The apps were being used to click on fraudulent ads. They also continued to run even after being closed causing high battery drain and large amounts of data consumption. Google had removed these apps in the last week of November.That's not all, in November, it removed a total of 13 apps because they were found to be installing malware on people's devices. So far, as many as 5,600,000 users of Android downloaded these apps which include a truck simulator, fire truck simulator, luxury car driving simulator and more.