More than 10million users installed Android apps that showed out-of-context ads.

Android Applications — Out-Of-Context Ads

Google security researchers found 164 Android applications bombarding users with out-of-context ads last year.

Out-of-context ads, or out-of-app ads, refers to mobile ads that are shown inside a popup or on the entire screen, separate from the original app.

Importantly, Play Store banned these types of ads as it might create a loophole on Android devices for silent ad spam.

However, the original ban on out-of-context ads brought bans for 600 Android apps.

White Ops, a security firm specialized in detecting bot and advertising fraud, discovered these bombarding applications.

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Similarly, it recently discovered another also abused out-of-context ads app cluster, which managed to stay undetected for more than two years.

In addition, this didn’t mean that app developers stopped abusing this mechanism.

According to Google Play Store rules, the apps removed from the store and disabled on users’ devices.

But users still need to manually remove them from their phones.

Security Recommendations:

Follow the below recommendations before downloading applications from Play Store

• Downloading a new app, make sure they are real, the official version of what you’re trying to get
• Look at the reviews, not five-star reviews, also 1-Star and 2-Star reviews

The full list of apps associated with this investigation here. (txt file)