Share:
Malware spreading through 19 apps you need to delete right now
Sometimes, when you’re hunting for new apps to download, you’ll stumble upon a program that seems to make your phone worse. Once you install it, you start noticing performance issues, slowdowns or annoying advertisements any time you try to use your phone. What could cause this?
If you couldn’t already guess, these issues are red flags for malware. And despite its reputation as the official store for Android apps, Google Play continues to miss deceptive programs being uploaded by scammers and hackers. Tap or click here to see the last bad batch of malware you need to delete from your Android.
A new group of malicious Android apps has been discovered on the Google Play Store, and compared to previous ones, these apps are extra annoying. Once installed, the apps delete their icons so they’re harder to get rid of. Then, they start flooding your phone with annoying ads that won’t go away. Here’s what you need to do to clean them off your phone.
Remember installing these apps? It might be a ‘blur’
According to a new threat report from White Ops, 19 new malicious Android apps were detected on the Google Play Store installing intrusive popups and advertisements on users’ phones.
These apps, many of which have ‘blur’ in their package names, are the annoying kind that removes their app icons once you install them and hide on your system. But they don’t stop there. Once they’re on your phone, you’ll start seeing obnoxious, low-quality popups every time you perform ordinary tasks like unlocking your screen or hanging up a phone call.
This results in extreme sluggishness for older Android devices and makes using your phone an absolute nightmare. We already see enough ads as it is online, so you can imagine how bad it must be to use your phone normally and get ads constantly. At that point, the phone might as well be free. Tap or click here to see why YouTube is now serving more ads.
Following their discovery, Google removed these apps from the Google Play Store. That said, a large number of users may still have the apps installed on their devices due to how these apps stay hidden.
I hate ads! How can I fix my phone?
For starters, you’ll need to know which apps to delete from your Android. Luckily, we have all the information you need. These are the apps you need to delete from your phone now:
- Auto Picture Cut
- Color Call Flash
- Square Photo Blur
- Square Blur Photo
- Magic Call Flash
- Easy Blur
- Image Blur
- Auto Photo Blur
- Photo Blur
- Photo Blur Master
- Super Call Screen
- Square Blur Master
- Square Blur
- Smart Blur Photo
- Smart Photo Blur
- Super Call Flash
As we mentioned above, these apps hide their icons so you’ll have a harder time getting rid of them. Fortunately, there’s a workaround: To uninstall them, open the Settings app and locate the menu option labeled Apps. Scroll through your list of installed programs until you find the entries from the list. Then, tap them to uninstall.
If you’re still seeing popups after this, it may be in your best interest to re-install your Android operating system altogether. Tap or click here to see how to perform a factory reset on your Android phone.
Of course, to make sure you’re not losing anything valuable, you’ll want to make a secure cloud backup of all your data like photos, files, texts and videos. For this, we recommend our sponsor IDrive, which offers encrypted cloud storage for not just one but all of your most important devices.
Tags: advertisements (ads), Android, cloud backup, factory reset, Google, Google Play Store, hackers, malware, operating systems, promo code, scammers, uninstall
Share: