“When good apps work bad” seems to be the name of the digital game right now. The big pull The browser extension has recently shown its true colors, and now joining the malware purgatory is Android’s favorite “Barcode Scanner” app, despite its more than 10 million facilities.
Our usual advice applies, with an important caveat: if you’ve installed the barcode scanner on your Android device and Google hasn’t removed the app on your behalf yet, now is the best time to get rid of it. ‘n. However, make sure you are deleting the correct one. Malwarebytes recent report describes the application of the barcode scanner Lavabird:
“… in the case of the barcode scanner, malicious code had been added that was not found in previous versions of the application. In addition, the added code used intense obfuscation to prevent detection. To verify this, it comes from the same developer of the application, we have confirmed that it had been signed by the same digital certificate as previous clean versions.Due to its malicious intent, we moved from our original Adware detection category directly to Trojan, with Android / Trojan.HiddenAds.AdQR detection.
There is another application of the barcode scanner, of ZXing, which does not include malware (as of this writing). It’s probably the barcode scanner app you’re thinking of, as it’s been available for Android for almost as long as the operating system has existed. It’s okay to use, even if you’re getting it bombed in hell because people assume it is the malicious software application of the same name. Sigh.
How can you check which is which? If you don’t know with the app icon, you can always pull it up Settings> Applications and notifications> View all … applications> Barcode scannerand then tap Advanced> Application Details, which would take you to the Google Play Store tab. (The steps for your specific Android device may vary slightly). If the Google Play Store listing doesn’t exist, you have the wrong Barcode Scanner app and should remove it right now.
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What if you were wondering if you could do something about the Barcode Scanner app with malware? Not really. If an application has established an established presence in the Google Play Store, offers a useful service and has not been a problem for many years, there is nothing that can trigger you on a developer intention take advantage of all this good will by nefarious means.
Sure, you’ll notice that something is weird when the device starts acting (a browser that starts without interaction on your part, in this case), but it will be difficult to identify what is causing this problem. Broadly speaking, you’ll want to see which of your apps have been recently updated and start digging into them, but it’s also possible that an app that was updated months ago is activating some sort of malware or other practice. shadow (with the hopes that it will not be caught).
It probably wouldn’t hurt to install an app like that Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and run it from time to time; this can at least alert you if your device applications are acting suspiciously recently. Not even you need the premium version of the application: Regular free scans should go well (along with the app’s privacy audit feature). You canI consider it too Sophos Intercept X, full advertising Avast Antivirus, and many others.
Although I feel it’s weird the situation of having an application becomes a rogue like this and probably not guaranteeing that a real-time scanner will run on the device, it never hurts to have a few sitting tools in case the phone starts to do something weird. If so, scan, check for recently updated applications, and drive some web searches of your own to see if you can identify yourself the question. Chances are good that if the phone acts like junk, there is an app to blame.