Spyware: if you have one of these programs, remove them from your Android phone

Google has removed seven apps from the Play Store because they were designed to spy on and monitor mobile activity employees, the couple or children, according to a cybersecurity company.

The app store had this software, which from the computer company Avast was linked to a Russian developer. In all they have been installed over 130,000 times.

The apps are designed to monitor the location of the phone's owner, retrieve information from their contacts, access message content, and call history. Here are the programs you need to remove from your device if you installed them:

– Employee tracking Check your phone at work online Spy Free

– Spy Kids Tracker

– Cell Phone Tracker

– Mobile tracking

– Spy Tracker

– SMS tracker

– Employee work spy

To use these apps, the person who was going to spy on the content I should have access to the victim's smartphone, to install them directly from the Play Store. Subsequently, they provided a link via their email account to track the activity of the cell owner.

To disguise the activity of spying, the applications themselves have explained to the user how to do it. to disappear his trace of the victim's cell phone, who is not aware of this harbadment since the applications do not install an access icon.

Avast informed Google Tuesday of the existence of four of the applications and Wednesday of three others. Google removed them as soon as he became aware of them, according to Avast.

This type of program is opposed to the application policy offered in the Play Store: "Surveillance apps and commercial spyware are explicitly prohibited on Google Play. Only strategy-compliant applications, designed and marketed exclusively for parental supervision (including family) or business administration, can be distributed in the store with tracking and reporting functions, provided that they are available exclusively to parents. they meet the requirements described below.", Informed the company.