As many as 20 million Android users have downloaded beauty camera or photo apps that have been discovered to be fraudulent and malicious. If you downloaded any of these apps, remove them immediately.
Listed below are the apps that are now banned from the Play Store:
- Rose Photo Editor & Selfie Beauty Camera
- Ele Beauty Camera
- Solu Camera
- Beauty & Filters Camera
- Pro Selfie Beauty Camera
- Beauty Camera Selfie Filter
- Selife Beauty Camera & Photo Editor
- Grass Beauty Camera
- Vanu Selife Beauty Camera
- Little Bee Beauty Camera
- Funny Sweet Beauty Camera
- Pand Selife Beauty Camera
- Beauty Camera & Photo Editor Pro
- Gaty Beauty Camera
- Sun Pro Beauty Cameraa
- Best Selfie Beauty Camera
- Lite Beauty Camera
- Catoon Photo Editor & Selfie Beauty Camera
- Selfie Beauty Camera Pro
- Elegant Beauty Cam-2019
- Pinut Selife Beauty Camera & Photo Editor
- Yoroko Camera
- First Selife Beauty Camera & Photo Editor
- Flower Beauty Camera
- Orange Camera
- Photo Collage & Beauty Camera
- Benbu Selife Beauty Camera
- Beauty Collage Lite
- Sunny Beauty Camera
- Mood Photo Editor & Selife Beauty Camera
- Fog Selife Beauty Camera
SEE ALSO: Should you cover your webcam? Here are 5 easy ways on how to avoid ‘spying’
Under the pretense of adding beauty and selfie-related filters to photos, these apps excessively display intrusive ads and load websites without the users’ permission. They can also be hard to uninstall.
As reported by the White Ops Threat Intelligence and Research Team, these apps are designed to circumvent security measures in the Play Store. Although the apps are eventually discovered and removed, the fraudsters regularly publish new ones to replace the banned apps.
Many of these fraudulent apps have at least 100,000 installs, and some have even reached millions. As we’ve said before, Android may be getting more secure, but malware developers will find ways to exploit users.
Source: Forbes