Remove These Fake VPNs That Turn Your Android Devices into Relay Devices

If you’re looking to secure your internet connections using one of these virtual private network (VPN) apps, you’re missing out because not only is your Android device unsecured, but hackers can use it for their own illegal purposes.

In other words, these fake VPN apps serve as relays for hackers to multiply attacks on targets such as businesses, government services, etc.

The new warning was issued by Human Satori Threat Intelligence researchers who discovered that dangerous apps are lurking in the Google Play Store, tempting users to put their phones and data at risk.

Potential attacks from infected phones

They warn us that a family of malicious VPN apps, run by malicious code, has managed to bypass Google’s protections and turn Android phones into proxy servers (or proxy devices) in a malicious network for hire. Once installed, applications hide the source of their commands, opening the door to a series of attacks, all of them dangerous. Google has removed incorrect versions of applications from the Play Store.

The researchers behind the report explain that the use of so-called residential proxies “can be used by hackers to hide malicious activities, including password spraying, large-scale ad fraud, or credential stuffing attacks.”

Byte Blade

When an attacker uses a residential proxy, the traffic from these attacks comes from different residential IP addresses rather than from the data center IP address or other parts of the attacker’s infrastructure. “It is clear that these proxy phones are creating a net and growing network of seemingly innocent IP addresses.”

By defending against all these home proxies (infected phones), hackers can carry out attacks undetected, as the FBI describes these methods: “Cybercriminals have relied heavily on the use of home proxies, which are connected to home Internet connections and are therefore less likely to be attacked ” declared abnormal…”

Read: Five Golden Rules You Should Know To Protect Your Digital Security Online

Which VPN to choose?

Always choose a paid VPN app from a reputable developer located in the app store and designed for your mobile system; iOS or Android.

Read: Features You Need to Know to Find a Reliable Virtual Private Network (VPN) Service

Swift Shield VPN

List of applications to remove

Below is a list of malicious apps that have been removed from the Google Play Store. As always, now that the threat has been detected, Google Play Protect will prevent future installations of versions of these apps that still contain the malicious SDK. Remove them now.