Android powers more than five times as many smartphones and tablets as iOS. As a result, the number of apps on the Google Play Store is considerably higher than Apple's App Store and that makes the app review process less rigorous for Android. Predictably, that allows many malicious apps to pass through the review process much more easily and remain on the Play Store until reported for chicanery. Google, however, does act promptly in removing malicious apps, especially when it comes to serious allegations like phishing. The internet giant has now struck down 25 apps for deceiving users and logging Facebook login credentials, as per a recent report.

French cyber-security agency Evina recently reported 25 malicious apps to Google in May for siphoning off users' Facebook login details. This was accomplished by creating a faux login page on top of the actual Facebook's login page. The malicious elements were disguised by legit functionality in these apps. Evina notes that these apps were masquerading as wallpaper apps, image and video editors, flashlight apps, games, and file managers on the Google Play Store.

Facebook phishing play store removed apps
Fake Facebook login page in the overlay; Image courtesy of Evina

The French agent also told ZDNet that some of these malicious apps had been on the Google Play Store for over a year. Google removed them after validating the findings in early June. While removing apps from the Play Store, Google also disables them on users' smartphones and informs them through the Play Protect feature.

The list of apps removed by Google includes:

App Name

Package

No. of installs

Super Wallpapers Flashlight

com.wallpaper.flashlight.compass

500000+

Padenatef

com.sun.newjbq.beijing.ten

500000+

Wallpaper Level

com.liapp.level

100000+

Contour level wallpaper

com.communication.walllevel

100000+

iPlayer & iWallpaper

com.ldl.videoedit.iwallpapers

100000+

Video Maker

com.androidapp.videosedit.v

100000+

Color Wallpapers

com.play.ljj.wallpapercomapss

100000+

Pedometer

com.baidu.news.pedometer

100000+

Powerful Flashlight

com.meituanybw.flash

100000+

Super Bright Flashlight

com.tqyapp.sb.flashlight

100000+

Super Flashlight

com.superapp.xincheng

100000+

Solitaire Game

com.game.tqsolitaire

100000+

Accurate scanning of Meade

com.tqyapp.qr

50000+

Classic card game

com.card.solitairenew

50000+

Junk file cleaning

com.xdapp.cleaning

50000+

Synthetic Z

com.tqygame.synthetic

50000+

File Manager

com.smt.filemanager

50000+

Composite Z

com.game.hcz

50000+

Screenshot Capture

com.tianqiyang.lww.screenedit

10000+

Daily Horoscope Wallpapers

com.tianqiyang.lww.constellation

10000+

Wuxia Reader

com.wuxia.reader

10000+

Plus Weather

com.plus.android.weather

10000+

Anime Live Wallpaper

com.tqyapp.chuangtai

100

iHealth Step Counter

com.tiantian.lang.tencent

-

com.tgyapp.fiction

com.tgyapp.fiction

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