Cluster of 240+ Android apps caught showing OCC ads
Researchers identified a massive fraudulent advertising business that used 240 + Play Store apps with 1M + downloads mostly low-quality games or stolen Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulators, to display out-of context ads.
Out-of Content ads are mobile ads shown outside an app’s normal container. They appear as pop-ups or full-screen ads. These ads are banned on Play Store since February this year. But, despite this ban, apps showing out-of content ads have continued to be discovered.
The latest discoveries are from White Ops. The company informed about its discovery through a blog post the day before, which is on 8th of October. It said that this cluster of apps bombard their users with out-of content ads – but made to look like they originated from other, more legitimate applications.
White ops named this assortment of apps RainBoxMix due to the 8-16 bit games distributing the intrusive ads.
Most of the apps are gaming related appeared as some legit apps, while included a malicious component called “com.timuz.a” – which is responsible for the OOC ads.
Gabriel Cirlig, the lead researcher on RainbowMix, said, the 240+ apps managed to amass more than 14Millions downloads in this year alone. The operation garnered more than 15 million ad impressions per day – at its peak during the month of August.
The apps are downloaded across Americans and Asia, with the top of countries being:
- 8% – Brazil
- 7% – Indonesia
- 0% – Vietnam
- 7% – US
- 2% – Mexico
- 9% – Philippines
Although it is very difficult to say what the profits for the fraudsters, even if they receive one cent per view, they would make at least $15, 000 on the best days.
