Antivirus

These free antivirus apps may cause more damage than actual viruses

Audio player loading… Downloading a free antivirus or cleaning app for your Android smartphone may put your privacy and security at greater risk than if you had avoided doing so altogether as many of these apps contain data trackers and even links to potentially malicious domains.To compile its new report, Cybernews studied the 40 highest-ranking…

Published 3 years ago in
These free antivirus apps may cause more damage than actual viruses
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Downloading a free antivirus or cleaning app for your Android smartphone may put your privacy and security at greater risk than if you had avoided doing so altogether as many of these apps contain data trackers and even links to potentially malicious domains.

To compile its new report, Cybernews studied the 40 highest-ranking and most downloaded cleaning and Android antivirus apps on the Google Play Store to find that many of these apps don’t live up to the high standards of similar software on desktop. Even worse, between them these apps have been installed more than 918m times and and the most popular ones have over 1m installs each.

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Cybernews’ research team provided further insight on its findings and explained why users may be tempted to download these apps in a blog post, saying:

“Based on the total installation count, common Android users are eager to secure their phones from malware and interested in keeping their devices running as fast as possible by cleaning junk files and cache. Less tech-savvy users are likely to download an app to do all of this tedious work automatically. However, a lot of the free available options come at a hidden price – user data is being tracked, sold or plainly managed insecurely due to questionable coding and privacy practices of the application developers.”

Red flags galore

After doing a deep dive on each of the 40 apps in question, Cybernews then gave each a security score out of 100.

13 of the apps were judged to be so detrimental to privacy by the news outlet that they scored the lowest pos

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Antivirus

Gamers at risk as scammers are using malware-infected cheats and mods to steal passwords and crypto — here’s how to stay safe

Cheats and mods are now frontlines for cybercrime targeting gamers’ wallets and private data Verified crypto wallets like MetaMask and Exodus are being drained through browser injection Trojan.Scavenger abuses overlooked flaws to disable browser safety and manipulate trusted extensions Gamers seeking performance enhancements or special abilities through third-party patches and mods may be unwittingly exposing

Published 4 days ago in
Gamers at risk as scammers are using malware-infected cheats and mods to steal passwords and crypto — here’s how to stay safe
  • Cheats and mods are now frontlines for cybercrime targeting gamers’ wallets and private data
  • Verified crypto wallets like MetaMask and Exodus are being drained through browser injection
  • Trojan.Scavenger abuses overlooked flaws to disable browser safety and manipulate trusted extensions

Gamers seeking performance enhancements or special abilities through third-party patches and mods may be unwittingly exposing themselves to sophisticated malware, experts have warned.

Recent findings from Dr.Web revealed a malware family known as “Trojan.Scavenger” which targets Windows users by disguising itself as cheats or enhancements for popular games.

This seemingly harmless mod can ultimately compromise crypto wallets, password managers, and web browsers, posing serious risks to user privacy and digital assets.

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When cheats become covert threats

The infection chain begins when users download ZIP archives claiming to improve performance in games including the likes of Grand Theft Auto 5 or Oblivion Remastered.

These archives contain modified dynamic libraries, sometimes renamed with extensions like .ASI to resemble legitimate plugin formats.

When the user follows the installation instructions, the malicious library is placed in the same folder as the target game. If the game does not properly validate its libraries, the trojan loads automatically at startup.

In some cases, flaws in library search priorities are essential to the malware’s success, allowing it to hijack execution within the host application.

Once loaded, the malware establishes contact with a command-and-control server using encrypted communication. This process includes verifying encryption keys and checking timestamp consistency, which is meant to evade analysis and block antivirus detection.

The malware doesn’t stop with the initial payload. In more complex infections, it deploys additional trojans that embed themselves in Chromium-based browsers like Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Yandex.

These troj

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Antivirus

Major new malware strain targets crypto users via malicious ads – here’s what we know, and how to stay safe

Check Point finds thousands of ads promoting fake crypto apps The apps come with an infostealer malware targeting users The infostealer can bypass most antivirus protections Cryptocurrency users are being targeted by a highly sophisticated, widespread cybercriminal campaign with the goal of deploying malware capable of grabbing exchange and wallet information, essentially robbing the people

Published 7 days ago in
Major new malware strain targets crypto users via malicious ads – here’s what we know, and how to stay safe
  • Check Point finds thousands of ads promoting fake crypto apps
  • The apps come with an infostealer malware targeting users
  • The infostealer can bypass most antivirus protections

Cryptocurrency users are being targeted by a highly sophisticated, widespread cybercriminal campaign with the goal of deploying malware capable of grabbing exchange and wallet information, essentially robbing the people of their tokens, experts from Check Point have warned.

Apparently active since March 2024, what makes this campaign, dubbed JSCEAL by the researchers, unique is the use of compiled JavaScript files (JSC), which allows the malware to remain hidden from most traditional antivirus solutions.

The criminals created fake cryptocurrency exchange and wallet apps, which come with an infostealer. They also created websites to host these apps, and managed to purchase thousands of advertisements on the internet to promote the scam. Check Point says that just in the European Union (EU), 35,000 malicious ads were served between January and June 2025.

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JSCEAL malware

“The use of Facebook’s Ad Library enabled us to estimate the campaign’s reach, while in a very conservative approach we can estimate the total reach of the malvertising campaign at 3.5 million users within the EU alone, and likely above 10 million users worldwide,” the researchers explained.

People who fall for the scam download an MSI installer which triggers “a sequence of profiling scripts” that gather critical system information. These scripts also use PowerShell commands to collect and exfiltrate data, in preparation of the final payload deployment.

This final payload is the JSCEAL malware, which steals crypto-related data such as credentials and private keys. The payload is executed through Node.js, it was said.

What makes this malware particularly dangerous is the use of compiled JavaScript files.

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Antivirus

From breached to bulletproof: The new rules of cybersecurity are about survival

Listen up, IT professionals. If you’re still treating cybersecurity like a checkbox exercise, you’re already three steps behind the attackers. The digital battlefield has changed, and the old rules no longer apply. Gone are the days when a firewall and antivirus software were enough to keep your organization safe…

Published 4 weeks ago in
From breached to bulletproof: The new rules of cybersecurity are about survival

Listen up, IT professionals. If you’re still treating cybersecurity like a checkbox exercise, you’re already three steps behind the attackers. The digital battlefield has changed, and the old rules no longer apply. Gone are the days when a firewall and antivirus software were enough to keep your organization safe…
Read More

Continue Reading
Antivirus

Nearly 8,500 small and medium businesses faced cyberattacks through mimic AI tools in 2025: Kaspersky

Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky said on Wednesday that nearly 8,500 users from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) faced cyberattacks in the year so far, where “malicious or unwanted software” was disguised as popular online productivity tools. In April, Kaspersky — a cybersecurity company that provides antivirus and other security software for computers and mobile devices

Published 1 month ago in
Nearly 8,500 small and medium businesses faced cyberattacks through mimic AI tools in 2025: Kaspersky

Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky said on Wednesday that nearly 8,500 users from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) faced cyberattacks in the year so far, where “malicious or unwanted software” was disguised as popular online productivity tools.
In April, Kaspersky — a cybersecurity company that provides antivirus and other security software for computers and mobile devices — said that widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies in recent years has provided “threat actors with sophisticated new tools to perpetrate attacks”…
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