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You might have heard about this app or maybe must have used a similar sounding app – PDF reader app. We are talking about this specific dodgy app named ‘PDF Reader – documents viewer’ by Fairy Games on Google Play Store, which has become an app of concern for all Android phone users. According to cyber security company Malwarebytes, a newly discovered adware pops up advertisements on your Android smartphone even if the app is not being used. The worrying part is that it has been available on the Google Play Store since November 2021 and has over a million downloads.
Malwarebytes informed via a blog that “A PDF reader found on Google Play with over one million downloads is aggressively displaying full screen ads, even when the app is not in use. More specifically, the reader is known as PDF reader – documents viewer, package name com.document.pdf.viewer. As a result, this aggressive behavior lands it in the realm of adware.”
This behavior makes it difficult to identify and remove the source of the pop-up ads on the device, which are bombarded on the user’s phone quite frequently. Every single time an ad is shown on an Android device, the fraudsters behind this app earn a small amount of money. Those minor earnings can add up to a huge amount considering that over a million people have downloaded it.
Once users install this nasty app, called “PDF reader – documents viewer”, it takes a couple of hours before starting to show these ads. Once the owner of the phone unlocks it to check, it shows up as a full-page ad. Shortly, another ad in the form of a video shows up afterwards, and it just continues with more ads.
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