Attackers are now doing the same with Android devices, with the help of malicious applications hosted on Google Play and other third-party app stores. The investigation was launched in response to large DDoS attacks that have hit several content providers and content delivery networks over the past few weeks. The researchers were able to establish a pattern to the User-Agent string reported by the rogue clients and traced them back to malicious Android applications. Google has removed the malicious applications from Google Play and started to remotely remove them from affected devices as well. Furthermore, the Play Protect feature which runs locally on Android devices prevents these apps from being reinstalled, the researchers said.

Source: Forbes August 28, 2017 22:52 UTC