Google Play has a number of malicious cryptocurrency apps

• Kaspersky Lab discovered multiple instances of malicious Android mining apps appearing on the Google Play Store.

• One of these apps was downloaded over 100,000 times before it was discovered and removed. 

• Google has yet to issue a statement about the discovery of these malicious Android mining apps.

When you download an app from the Google Play Store, an assumption is made that Google has vetted that app to make it safe for you.

While Google certainly does a great job with its policing of the store, with 3.5 million apps and counting , some malicious apps will inevitably make it through the filters.
It appears that’s just what happened with a slew of apps that secretly use your smartphone’s processor to mine
cryptocurrency .

 Researchers at Kaspersky Lab found multiple malicious Android mining apps on the Google Play Store that look like your typical games, sports streaming apps, VPN’s, etc., but are actually crypto mining apps running without the user’s knowledge or consent.

Google Play Store is flooded with a malicious cryptocurrency app posing as a legitimate crypto wallet and it seems that they are not able to control the influx. These apps steal keys from the users and then drain their accounts.

Download app:- Tech Gyan Mantra

In 2018 alone, the company has removed three instances of malign versions of the apps. Recently, Security researcher Lukas Stafanko has found another malicious version of a popular cryptocurrency app MyEtherWallet which is especially delineated to steal users private keys and secretly take out all their funds.


According to the researcher, the malicious app has allegedly remained available to download for four days before the Google took it down from its Play Store.


In January this year, Google took down another corrupted instance of MyEtherWallet, but it remained on the Play Store for more than a week and was downloaded between 100 and 500 times before it was removed from the Store. Fortunately, this time it appears that nobody downloaded the app.


Security researcher Troy Mursch has said that there should be “no excuse” as the company is not able to prevent malicious apps from appearing up in the Play Store. “Slow abuse handling only provides more incentive for apps like this to be published,” Mursch said on Twitter.


Google has to do something very seriously to respond to these dangerous issues.