Cybersecurity researchers are calling consideration to a brand new shift within the Android malware panorama the place dropper apps, that are sometimes used to ship banking trojans, to additionally distribute easier malware similar to SMS stealers and fundamental spy ware.
These campaigns are propagated through dropper apps masquerading as authorities or banking apps in India and different elements of Asia, ThreatFabric stated in a report final week.
The Dutch cellular safety agency stated the change is pushed by latest safety protections that Google has piloted in choose markets like Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, and India to dam sideloading of probably suspicious apps requesting harmful permissions like SMS messages and accessibility companies, a closely abused setting to hold out malicious actions on Android units.
“Google Play Defend’s defences, notably the focused Pilot Program, are more and more efficient at stopping dangerous apps earlier than they run,” the corporate stated. “Second, actors wish to future-proof their operations.”
“By encapsulating even fundamental payloads inside a dropper, they achieve a protecting shell that may evade in the present day’s checks whereas staying versatile sufficient to swap payloads and pivot campaigns tomorrow.”
ThreatFabric stated that whereas Google’s technique ups the ante by blocking a malicious app from being put in even earlier than a consumer can work together with it, attackers are attempting out new methods to get across the safeguards — a sign of the infinite recreation of whack-a-mole in terms of safety.
This contains designing droppers, maintaining in thoughts Google’s Pilot Program, in order that they do not search high-risk permissions and serve solely a innocent “replace” display screen that may fly previous scanning within the areas.
Nevertheless it’s solely when the consumer clicks the “Replace” button that the precise payload will get fetched from an exterior server or unpacked, which then proceeds to hunt the mandatory permissions to fulfil its targets.
“Play Defend could show alerts in regards to the dangers, as part of a special scan, however so long as the consumer accepts them, the app is put in, and the payload is delivered,” ThreatFabric stated. “This illustrates a vital hole: Play Defend nonetheless permits dangerous apps via if the consumer clicks Set up anyway, and the malware nonetheless slips via the Pilot Program.”
One such dropper is RewardDropMiner, which has been discovered to serve together with spy ware payloads a Monero cryptocurrency miner that may be activated remotely. Latest variants of the instrument, nonetheless, now not embody the miner performance.
A few of the malicious apps delivered through RewardDropMiner, all concentrating on customers in India, are listed under –
- PM YOJANA 2025 (com.fluvdp.hrzmkgi)
- °RTO Challan (com.epr.fnroyex)
- SBI On-line (com.qmwownic.eqmff)
- Axis Card (com.tolqppj.yqmrlytfzrxa)
Different dropper variants that keep away from triggering Play Defend or the Pilot Program embody SecuriDropper, Zombinder, BrokewellDropper, HiddenCatDropper, and TiramisuDropper.
When reached for remark, Google informed The Hacker Information it has not discovered any apps utilizing these methods distributed through the Play Retailer and that it is consistently including new protections.
“No matter the place an app comes from – even when it is put in by a ‘dropper’ app – Google Play Defend helps to maintain customers secure by robotically checking it for threats,” a spokesperson stated.
“Safety in opposition to these recognized malware variations was already in place via Google Play Defend previous to this report. Based mostly on our present detection, no apps containing these variations of this malware have been discovered on Google Play. We’re consistently enhancing our protections to assist maintain customers secure from dangerous actors.”
The event comes as Bitdefender Labs has warned of a brand new marketing campaign that is utilizing malicious adverts on Fb to hawk a free premium model of the TradingView app for Android to in the end deploy an improved model of the Brokewell banking trojan to observe, management, and steal delicate info from the sufferer’s system.
A minimum of 75 malicious adverts have been run since July 22, 2025, reaching tens of hundreds of customers within the European Union alone. The Android assault wave is only one half of a bigger malvertising operation that has abused Fb Advertisements to additionally goal Home windows desktops below the guise of varied monetary and cryptocurrency apps.
“This marketing campaign exhibits how cybercriminals are fine-tuning their ways to maintain up with consumer conduct,” the Romanian cybersecurity firm stated. “By concentrating on cellular customers and disguising malware as trusted buying and selling instruments, attackers hope to money in on the rising reliance on crypto apps and monetary platforms.”
