To protect your mobile and increase the performance of your devices, surely you have considered installing a cleaning app . This would allow you to put an end to junk files permanently and increase the resources so that your smartphone works better. If you have thought about it, don’t do it!
Although this is a good idea a priori, the truth is that there are many applications of this type that are very dangerous because they usually contain the most viruses. Cybercriminals take advantage of users’ fear of being infected by them or of attacks to include malware in apps of this type.
Therefore, do not trust more than the recognized applications and with very good comments, which have a reputable company behind them and with many years of filming. In any case, in many cases you won’t need it because more and more mobile phones have their own built-in cleaning tool. For example, in Xiaomi you can easily clean cache and junk files from settings. So do not install cleaning apps because they could affect your mobile.
The dangers of cleaning apps in numbers
There are many apps that were (and are) in the Play Store that pretended to help you clean your mobile when in reality what they did was the opposite. At the beginning of this year, several apps related to security and cleaning were detected to improve the performance of your mobile that actually hid a virus, such as Fast Cleaner 2021 , PostBank Security and others. To give us an idea, the Fast Cleaner cleaning app had more than 50,000 downloads , so be careful if you haven’t installed it too.
A study by Cybernews has made it clear that security and cleaning tools have been installed more than 918 million times, many of which redirect you through malicious links to steal your bank details or other passwords. Among them are Fancy Booster Cleaner Antivirus & Speed Up, Dr Capsule Antivrus Cleaner, Antivirus – Cleaner + VPN and others.
In the month of July, of the apps full of malware and adware discovered that could affect and break your mobile , installed about 10 million times, there was some system optimizer like Cashe Cleaner or FastCleaner Cashe Cleaner.
Two months ago, in August, 13 apps were found to contain malware masquerading as tools to remove junk files and optimize battery life, but were actually hiding the HiddenAds malware. In case you haven’t heard when we alerted you to the situation, these are Junk Cleaner, EasyCleaner, Power Doctor, Super Clean, Full Clean -Clean Cache, Fingertip Cleaner, Quick Cleaner, Keep Clean, Windy Clean, Carpet Clean, Cool Clean, Strong Clean and Meteor Clean.
Last month, in September, 2 antivirus and mobile cleaning tools were discovered hiding a Trojan that was capable of stealing your bank details . This is SharkBot , present in Mister Phone Cleaner and Kylhavy Mobile Security.
All this in a short period of time, only this year several apps have been discovered in the Play Store that pretended to be cleaning tools for malicious purposes . To these could be added those that have not been detected, and that could affect you, or those that can be installed outside the mobile application store.
They are not the first nor the only cases, so be careful because depending on the virus they contain, they can affect you in different ways . Be careful with them, do not install them!
