Old Windows malware may have tampered with 132 Android apps

Google has removed 132 apps from its Play store following a malicious coding flaw that was found possibly because the developers were using infected computers with malware, according to security researchers.

The 132 apps were found generating hidden iframes, or an HTML document embedded inside a webpage, linking to two domains that have hosted malware, according to security firm Palo Alto Networks. Google investigation indicates that the developers of these infected apps are not to blame, but are more likely victims themselves.

“We believe it is most likely that the app developers’ development platforms were infected with malware that searches for HTML pages and injects malicious content at the end of the HTML pages it finds” Google reports.  If this is this case, this is another situation where mobile malware originated from infected development platforms without developers’ awareness.

it’s possible the app makers downloaded developer tools that were already tainted with the malicious coding.

Because these 132 apps linked to two now defunct malicious domains, they actually don’t pose much of a threat. It may be that whoever tampered with these apps did so accidentally reports PC World.

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