Over Half of Android Devices are Still Vulnerable to Ghost Push Trojan

Secret backdoors

It'south been over ii years since nosotros first learned about the Android trojan Ghost Push. But, even after years the malware remains active and millions of devices are still vulnerable to information technology.

Evolving and attacking Android devices in the wild since 2022, Ghost Push button infected over 600,000 Android devices per day, during its peak. Now, researchers have revealed that the Android devices are notwithstanding vulnerable to this trojan, thanks to lack of Android security updates.

Android smartphones and tablets that are running Android vi.0 Marshmallow or Android seven.0 Nougat are secure from this trojan. However, millions of devices still run Android v.0 Lollipop or earlier versions of Android. Very few devices have been upgraded to the latest versions of Android due to lack of OEM or carrier support. "Currently, most all Android versions except Android half-dozen.0 are at gamble of being rooted," the report said.

Equally shared with our readers earlier today, most of Android trojans come from pirate and open-sourced stores, outside of the official Google Play Shop. Deceptive advertising, third-party web pages, and pornographic websites remain the top sources of how this trojan is installed on user devices. While Google conducts security checks when an app is submitted to Google Play store, you cannot exist sure about the security features, or what an app is actually doing in the background, if you lot are installing it from what's known as "unknown sources."

Ghost Push button and its capabilities

In one case installed through any of these channels, thanks to its root privileges, Ghost Push is able to install more malware, unwanted apps and programs for acquirement, display adverts, and even spy on users and steal their personal information. "Equally these root Trojans are very difficult to remove, and they oftentimes update the ads or root SDK automatically, at that place is a stable bunch of 'users'. Through pushing ads and distributing apps to these users, the Trojans can make profits constantly," researchers noted.

If you have received updates for your Android device, install them right away. Updating to Android six.0 or later is the easiest mode to avert these issues. But, if you cannot, attempt to download applications simply from the Google Play store to avert these data stealing and spyware apps.