Certain Google Apps May Be Stealing Your Personal Info

Be careful about which apps you are downloading because some popular apps are mining your phone for personal information.

Free Apps

Everyone loves free things but in the app world, if something is free, you are not the customer you are the product.

Like many parents, I have downloaded my share of free app games for my son when he was little to give him something to do on trips. I would notice my phone doing weird things and when I deleted a bunch of those old games things got back to normal.

When apps first came on the market, many were free to get people to the well. Then people who make apps to mine your phone for personal information like your bank account and social security number started making apps that looked like other popular apps to put malware into your phone.

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Download a PDF or QR Reader on Your Android? Your Phone May Have Malware

I figured the bad guys would start making apps we need and then putting extra stuff in them to steal our info and a company has found over 90 apps in the Google Play store that are bad actors.

According to Zscaler, security specialists from the company spent some time going through apps for Android phones on the Google Play Store. They found more than 90 apps contained malicious applications with nearly 6 million installed in phones.  So if you have downloaded a QR reader or PDF reader Zscaler found many of the apps had practical uses but malware was siphoning your financial information secretly.

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App makers are disguising tools like editors, file managers, translators, QR readers, and PDF readers as legitimate applications when tricking people out of financial information. Learn more about what to look for when these apps are trying to scam you by clicking here.