Delete these apps from your phone now! Google has banned them from Play Store over Joker threat

Google has banned 3 Android apps from Google Play Store to protect users from attacks by Joker malware.

Google has banned three apps from Play Store.  (Reuters)

Google has banned three Android apps from the Google Play Store and having them on your phone could be dangerous for you. The tech giant has purged its Play Store after it found that the three apps were capable of installing the malicious Joker malware on phones of innocent users. This infamous malware can steal money from Android users by signing them up for costly subscription services without any prior information. These three malicious apps were found by Kaspersky. In one of the posts, Igor Golovin, the author of the research shared that Joker gets past Google's security measures and the malicious functions become active only after the app goes live on the Play Store marketplace.

Golovin wrote, "Trojans from the Trojan.AndroidOS.Jocker family can intercept codes sent in text messages and bypass anti-fraud solutions. They're usually spread on Google Play, where scammers download legitimate apps from the store, add malicious code to them and re-upload them to the store under a different name.” The Trojan infected apps carry out the further process and trick users into paying for a subscription without letting users suspect any threats. Here are the three apps that can possess threat

• Style Message (com.stylelacat.message around),

• Blood Pressure App (blood.maodig.raise.bloodrate.monitorapp.plus.tracker.tool.health), and

• Camera PDF Scanner (com.jiao.hdcam.docscanner)

Google has removed these apps from Play Store, but if you have already downloaded them on your phone, then you must delete them from your device immediately.

This is not the first time that Google has removed malicious apps from Play Store. Earlier also, the tech giant has removed several apps that were found to be malware infected.

How to avoid malware

The only way to keep your device safe is to avoid installing apps from unofficial sources, which is the most frequent source of malware. Also, when installing apps from Google Play read the reviews, check out the developer, the terms of use and payment. For messaging, always choose a well-known app with positive reviews. Also, you should avoid granting too many permissions to any of the apps.