Beware! Your new mobile phone might have a pre-installed malware in it!

As per the recent reports, Avast has warned thousands of customers about the most dangerous malware that is being installed in the budget mobile phones. The company has discovered the same on hundreds of Android device versions and models. Vojtech Bocek and Nikolaos Chrysaidos, Avast resident mobile security experts said “the company has figured out a large number of devices that are found pre-injected are from the manufacturers such as Archos, ZTE, and myPhone.

The majority of Android phones developed and being marketed by these companies are not even certified by the Google. The Czech multinational cybersecurity software company further explained that the adware was earlier mentioned by fellow antivirus provider Dr. Web. Named as Cosiloon, the malware builds an overlay to show an advertisement over a webpage that is opened in the browser installed on the phone.

Cosiloon has been active since 2015 and is hard to eradicate as it is installed on the firmware level and utilizes strong obfuscation. The company further added that many devices had already been infected from this malware. According to the records, around 18000 affected devices from more than 100 countries. These countries include UK, Germany, Italy, Russia as well as the United States.

Avast Antivirus company officials said that “we are in touch with Google and they are now aware of this problem. The American multinational technology company has also taken actions to reduce the capability of several app variants on different device versions that are utilizing internally developed methods.”

To ensure the security and protection, Google Play Protect has also been updated. Google has also connected to several mobile phone manufacturers’ firmware developers to make people aware of this issue and motivate them to take steps to highlight the same.