Adware come in various forms; some stay quietly on the side of the screen, while others aggressively pop up on the main screen, causing a nuisance for users. While the latter may not necessarily be malicious, these can nonetheless inflict a great deal of trouble on the user, especially when the application is as annoying as it is fraudulent.
Symantec recently discovered at least 68 fraudulent apps by five different developers that contain aggressive advertisements on Google Play. We’ve categorized them according to their tricks. These apps promise one thing on the app description page but may not actually provide or perform the functionalities as described. Users who download these fraudulent apps end up only wasting time watching advertisements and not getting what they signed up for.
All these apps manifest identical behaviors upon launching: after users install the apps, they are subjected to a series of guided screens, with advertisements popping up at every single Next button pressed. However, despite the detailed descriptions for the apps, they provide none of the described functionalities.
