In the last few hours Google announced that it had removed a series of applications from the Play Store because they contained a dangerous malware known as Joker Virus that has already been causing big problems for users with cell phones whose operating system is Android for several years.
This is ransomware that enters devices, infecting the SIM card of the cell phone and obtaining partial control of the cell phone to carry out different types of actions -the most damaging being subscription to services payment via SMS without the permission of the owner-.
Trojan, ransomware, worm, spyware and virus: the threats that all Argentines suffer
In this way, the virus whose origin dates back to 2017 can be described as one of the most dangerous in the world of mobile telephony, mainly because it attacks silently, spying on personal data of their victims and even defrauding them by charging for garbage services.
And this situation has been a problem for Google for a long time now, having eliminated more than 1,700 applications affected between September 2019 and early 2020 how part of their Google Play Protect program, with which they seek to prevent and stop this type of scam before it happens.
Despite these efforts, some 24 applications with the virus inside them passed the security test and obtained an average of 500,000 downloads each, leading to a new debugging of apps in the Play Store< /u>.
Argentines use it every day to work and now it is a danger: it steals the cards
WHICH APPS CONTAIN THE JOKER VIRUS
According to Google's official report, there are eight apps removed from the Play Store that contained the malware. These are the following:
To these is added a series of applications that according to the cybersecurity company Zscaler could also contain the dangerous virus:
It is important to note that if you have any of these applications downloaded to your cell phone -and you received strange subscriptions to services that you did not contract by text message- it is best to delete the applications and all the information contained inside, to ensure that the cell phone is safe.