Many might think that WhatsApp is one of the safest apps present on their smartphones, however, a new malware has been spotted and flagged on Google Play Store which can reportedly give hackers access to your phone’s data including the data from apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook and more. Online hack and cyber security have become two of the most talked about topics in the online world and the fact that even WhatsApp, which comes with security features such as end-to-end encryption isn't safe from prying eyes, is a little bit disturbing.
For the unknown, malware is a software which is specifically developed to cause damage and steal data from a computer, server, computer network or a client. 'ANDROIDOS_MOBSTSPY' is the name of the malware which has been discovered by security researchers at Trend Micro. The report says that there are as many as six such apps which come with this malware and have been downloaded over 100,000 times from Google Play Store.
According to a report by Trend Micro, the applications got listed on Google Play Store in the year 2018 and users from over 200 countries have been affected by this malware. Coming to the names of these apps, the malware was present in Flappy Birr Dog, FlashLight, Win7imulator, Win7Launcher, HZPermis Pro Arabe and Flappy Bird.
The report by the Japanese cyber security company adds that the malware is capable of stealing everything from a device which includes call logs, contacts, and personal messages. Moreover, data such as audio, video files and photos stored on the device along with WhatsApp data can be accessed with this malware.
As expected, Google removed all the six applications from the Play Store but it is still unclear whether over the 100,000 users who download these applications on their devices are safe from the malware or not. If you have already downloaded any one of these applications from the Google Play Store, then we will recommend you to uninstall the app and download antivirus software for cleaning the malware.