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Help Malware identification oneplus one

Wanitto

Newbie
Mar 4, 2015
18
7
Hello,

Description of problem

I have full-screen adverts popping up periodically whether in or out of an app. They don't seem to be app-specific. They appear once an hour and flip themselves happily on top of anything I am doing. They also seem to be an app in themselves; when they appear, they seem to relegate whatever app was in the foreground to the background - thus pausing anything I might have been doing in the same way as pressing the home button, or switching between apps.

I presume this is malware.

These are screenshots of some of the adverts that have popped up:

Screenshot_2015-03-04-08-44-20.png Screenshot_2015-03-04-09-50-56.png Screenshot_2015-03-04-10-51-25.png Screenshot_2015-03-04-12-28-14.png

They flip out of from the left of the screen after a small "Loading..." circle appears on the screen. Tapping the ads sends me to a browser which links to the Play store (have done this by mistake). The only way to close the ad is to press the ridiculously small X at the top right.

Query:

I know the drill: reset my phone to factory settings if all else fails. While I would like to remove these ads, and I am perfectly capable of following online instructions, I would rather attempt to pinpoint where these ads are coming from and learn how to avoid them. I hope you will be able to help me with this.

My phone and how I use it:

This is my first post on this website as I only recently acquired an android phone (Oneplus one 64GB, Android 4.4.4, not rooted).
I have been installing apps like mad, mostly apps that were advertised on Google Play Store, recommended apps, or widely used apps (with some super-cheap-in-app-ads-deluxe, which I have deleted).
I have also consulted a number of other posts on the topic, but none to my satisfaction.

Fix attempts:

I have had Avast Anti-virus app installed and running on my phone since before the ads started popping up. Avast did not pick up anything at any point and still does not pick up threats (even though there is clearly one).
After the ads started showing up, I installed other anti-malware apps (AMB and CM) from the Play store. Neither of these have intercepted the malware.

I have started deleting some of the recently installed apps. I am doing this one-by-one and waiting at least an hour after deleting the next one, in order to know if the deleted app was actually the cause of the problem. So far, no luck.

Help?

Thank you very much for helping me identify this thing.

LISTS OF APPS

Apps appearing in the ads (developer, if known): EZPZ RPG (R2Games), Gummy Drop! (Big Fish Games), Block Puzzle, Heroes Charge (uCool), Mino Monsters, Galaxy Legend (tap4fun), Free Slots, Jungle Monkey Kong (BoneGTA), Bulu Monster (Sigma Game Limited).

Apps recently installed (developer): Checkers (Magma Mobile), Chess-Play&Learn (chess.com), GoogleDocs (Google Inc), LibreOfficerViewerBeta (Collabora Productivity Limited), MyDataManager-DataUsage (Mobidia Technology), AutoWordsWithFriendsCheat (epEK.ware), Dubsmash (Mobile Motion GmbH), VideoMakerMovieEditor (Rabbit), LapseIt (Interactive Universe), ReverseMovieFx (Bizo Mobile), VivaVideo (QuVideo Inc.), TripTrap (Duello Games), ScratchThatLogoQuiz (Enra Soft), Linken (Level Ind), Paperama (FDG Entertainment GmbH & Co. KG), GoogleCamera (Google Inc.), Camu (Sumoing).
 
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So that was a total waste of my time. Why won't anybody respond?

I do have an update though. When I uninstalled dubsmash (which I have never used), a pop up warning from CM security said that the app left some residual files and prompted me to install a file cleaner app. This warning did not show after previous or subsequent uninstallations.
I haven't taken any actions, but I'm suspecting dubsmash as the cause (even though it is now uninstalled).
 
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CM security isn't trustworthy, it's marketing its own brand of cleaners - don't install them. In fact, if you have any automatic task killers or ram cleaners, get rid of them immediately.

http://androidforums.com/threads/pu...k-killers-ram-optimizers-and-the-like.896663/

In fact, get rid of CM Security.

That company has actually resorted to using malware in order to drive up installations.

http://malvertising.stopmalwares.com/2014/07/mobile-malvertising-fake-virus-alert/

A better security tool - check out "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.malwarebytes.antimalware
 
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CM security isn't trustworthy, it's marketing its own brand of cleaners - don't install them. In fact, if you have any automatic task killers or ram cleaners, get rid of them immediately.

http://androidforums.com/threads/pu...k-killers-ram-optimizers-and-the-like.896663/

In fact, get rid of CM Security.

That company has actually resorted to using malware in order to drive up installations.

http://malvertising.stopmalwares.com/2014/07/mobile-malvertising-fake-virus-alert/

A better security tool - check out "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.malwarebytes.antimalware

Thanks. I suspected so much about CM. I've been getting a bunch of notifications from them. Malwarebytes is better, but it still didn't register any malware.

As for the previous post, I followed the link, read a little, and installed 'addons detector'. Its a nice tool that gave me a list of all apps using advertising and other add-ons. I'm not too aware of what it does, but I went through the list and cross-checked with my recently installed apps. The only thing that struck me as weird was the app 'Piano Tiles' which uses leadbolt ads add-on. Perhaps this is the cause. This is the next app to be deleted from my phone, will update.
 
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It was piano tiles + leadbolt. Has been over an hour since I deleted the app and no more pop-ups! Yey.

Thanks. You've been great. I haven't deleted the two 'browser' folders yet but I will anyway.

And now I'm off to give piano tiles a bad review and send them an angry email.

I'll let you know if the popups come back, of course.
 
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