Necro

The security mechanisms of the Google Play Store still continue to fail on a regular basis, and cybercriminals often find new ways to bypass the security measures to put their threatening software on the most popular download platform for Android applications. However, who would have guessed that an application that has accumulated over 100,000,000 downloads also will end up being used to push malicious software? The app in question is called 'CamScanner,' and it serves the purpose of scanning through pictures of documents by using an advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) algorithm that allows the application to create an editable PDF file with the text found on the scanned image.

Application with 100 Million Downloads Brings Corrupted Code

While the free versions of the CamScanner application were programmed to display ads, there was nothing dubious about this advertising module – many programs use this monetization scheme. However, a recent update to the CamScanner program is said to have introduced a Trojan-dropper found in the library used to show advertisements – the dropper is called 'Necro' (or Trojan.Dropper.AndroidOS.Necro.n), and it has been seen on Chinese smartphones that came with pre-installed malware previously.

While the CamScanner's download page was taken down temporarily as soon as the issue was reported, it is likely that millions of users still have the threatening version installed on their devices. While the Necro Trojan Dropper is not unsafe in its own, a ill-minded actor could use it to drop threatening Android malware on the infected devices.

The Google Play Store might not Be as Safe as You Think

This case is another good reminder why you should not trust apps hosted on the Google Play Store blindly – its defenses are far from perfect, and unsafe applications have been hosted on it, numerous times. Even popular programs are not a guarantee for reliability, so your best option would be to rely on an up-to-date Android antivirus program.