A New Trend in Android Adware: Abusing Android Plugin Frameworks

It is common for legitimate mobile apps to embed advertising SDKs or promote other apps. Showing ads or promoting other apps can generate revenue for legitimate app developers. However, we have recently observed an alarming trend in mobile ads communities where some adware programs in the Google Play store have become more aggressive by abusing the third-party DroidPlugin framework on Android.

In this posting we will outline how Unit 42 researchers have found aggressive adware that abuses the...