Delete these Android apps before they steal your Facebook password and crypto

by James · October 26, 2022

If you tend to be constantly worried about the security and privacy of your data when using your mobile phone, we’re afraid today is going to be another one of those days.

You may want to sit down, take a deep breath, and make sure your heart medication is up to date before proceeding to the next sections of this article or scrolling through latest Trend Micro report detailing the highly intrusive and decidedly malicious behavior of a recent batch of “more than” 200 apps carrying a type of spyware known as “Facestealer” into hundreds of thousands of Android devices.

On top of that, the same cyber security software company caught “more than 40 fake cryptocurrency mining apps” in the act of trying (quite transparently) to steal people’s hard-earned cryptocurrency as well as various other types of sensitive information without any sort of user permission.

Here are just a few of the apps you should uninstall ASAP

Daily training Olympics
Enjoy Photo Editor
Panoramic camera
Photo game puzzle
Swarm image
Business Meta Manager
Cryptomining Farm Your own coin

If that list feels just a little shorter than one you’d expect to include 240+ titles, congratulations, your basic math skills are spot on. All kidding aside, these are unfortunately the only new apps explicitly named and shamed by Trend Micro, which are basically offered as general examples of titles you should look to stay away from on principle.

The good news is that all seven of these malware-carrying apps, as well as the titles not disclosed in this report, have been immediately kicked out of the Play Store as soon as Google was informed of their true intentions and data-stealing capabilities .

The bad news is that it doesn’t solve the obvious breach of privacy problem for all Android users who installed these apps before this disclosure. In addition to deleting all the culprits in the list above that you can find on your phone, it’s probably a good idea to change your Facebook password and any other login credentials for other popular apps and services that you may have stored on your device while using those apps . Pronto!

What you should watch out for in the future

Unfortunately, there is no foolproof solution to this particular scourge or similar security hazards widespread Joker campaigns, as evidenced by the solid 4.5 star average of Photo Gaming Puzzle and Swarm Photo or the decent 4.1 score of Enjoy Photo Editor, a malicious app that managed to break the 100,000 install barrier before leaving the Play Store .

It’s probably a good idea to stay away from sketchy or unpopular VPN, camera and photo editing apps.

Of course, there are many Android “photo editors” around with even higher user rating scores and higher install numbers, and as much as you might like to be “original” and defy trends, it’s generally safer to choose mobile tools and services verified and praised by so many people as possible.

That is, if you like to keep your Facebook credentials secret from bad actors who can use them in all sorts of shady ways, including trying to break into other apps and services that share the same password to steal even more information and then sell it. to the highest bidder.

When it comes to fake cryptocurrency mining apps, our general advice is even easier to follow. You should never, never, never, ever trust any such platform (especially one with an unverified and unverifiable track record) with even a dollar worth of your crypto or you risk losing… everything in your wallet.