ANDROID owners are being reminded to check if they’ve downloaded any Bluetooth apps recently after a bunch were found to be hosting viruses.
It’s feared more than one million people have already installed the apps which masquerade as useful tools but actually have malware hidden in them.
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Four apps were exposed by experts at Malwarebytes for using a trojan called HiddenAds.
They’re called Bluetooth Auto Connect, Bluetooth App Sender, Driver: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB and Mobile transfer: smart switch.
If you have any of them on your device you should delete it immediately.
Cybercriminals behind the campaign use a clever delay trick to pull the con off.
This means you won’t notice anything out of the ordinary to begin with, so you don’t have reason to suspect the apps are dodgy and take action.
But within a few days, the trojan starts doing its malicious work, opening phishing sites in Chrome.
Some of the sites it opens are nothing more than a nuisance generating money from adverts.
But others are more worrying, like one which includes adult content leading to more phishing pages, telling the individual they’ve been infected or need to perform an update.
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Tabs can secretly open in the background even when your phone is locked.
“When the user unlocks their device, Chrome opens with the latest site,” Malwarebytes said.
“A new tab opens with a new site frequently, and as a result, unlocking your phone after several hours means closing multiple tabs.
“The users browser history will also be a long list of nasty phishing sites.”
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
