60,000-plus malicious Android apps found, belong to these 8 different categories

Security researchers have found over 60,000 malicious Android apps. Bitdefender researchers believe that this mobile malware has been thriving undisturbed for an extended period of time in the absence of behavior-based detection capabilities on Android. The report claims that the campaign is designed to aggressively push adware to Android devices with the purpose of driving revenue. However, the threat actors involved can easily switch tactics to redirect users to other types of malware, such as banking Trojans to steal credentials and financial information or ransomware. Researchers claim that they have discovered 60,000 completely different samples (unique apps) carrying the adware and suspect that there are much more in the wild.

Here are some of the types of apps copied by the malware:

* Game cracks