An app called ‘Weather Forecast: World Weather Accurate Radar’ from Chinese company TCL Communications has again been caught red-handed, making digital purchases of premium services without the phone owner’s consent. This is the second time this app has been exposed for ad fraud.
In January, mobile technology company Upstream caught the app not only carrying out fraudulent premium transactions but secretly harvesting consumer data too. The app is preinstalled on some Alcatel phones and was available on Google Play Store.
Once Upstream revealed its malfeasance, the app ceased its background activity and was withdrawn from the Play Store.
However, after a quiet two-month period and despite the earlier exposure, Upstream’s Secure-D mobile security platform detected and blocked around 34 million fresh suspicious transaction attempts from the app. The version of the weather app preinstalled on Alcatel Pixi4 devices alone attempted to subscribe nearly 700 000 mobile consumers to premium digital services without their consent in only six months.
Guy Krief, CEO of Upstream, says: “It seems lightning does strike twice. This weather app lay low until the storm passed before returning to its old ways, with a spike in its rogue behaviour just a couple of months after it was reported."
This, he says, was followed by ongoing suspicious activity done in deliberately regulated volumes to enable the app to continue siphoning funds while remaining below the radar.
According to Krief, repeat malware offenders are fairly common, and if unchecked, these apps can create billions of dollars of fraudulent advertising revenue by eating up customers’ data, incurring unwanted charges and affecting the performance of their devices.
Upstream advises all Pixi4 Alcatel device owners to check their phones for unusual behaviour and remove any reported malware. in addition, they should check their bills for unwanted or unexpected charges associated with accessing premium data services and look out for signs of increased data usage which could indicate a malicious app is consuming data in the background.
To help check for malicious mobile apps, Upstream released Secure-D Index earlier this year. It's a free-to-use malware detection centre, which lists suspicious mobile apps that the company has blocked around the world.
“The mobile advertising fraud market is worth approximately $40bn annually," says Krief. "Hiding within seemingly legitimate and often popular applications, undetected malware is damaging the industry’s reputation and leaving mobile operators and their consumers to pick up the tab. The scale of the problem can no longer be ignored, and security must become the mobile industry’s number one priority.”
Share