More than 400 apps from the Play Store are potentially vulnerable

Security and privacy continue to be two of the most important concerns for the vast majority of smart device users, and although from Google it seems that they do a pretty decent job for offering Android users a level of tranquility, at least acceptable, does not seem to be enough since In the Play Store there are still many apps that put the security and privacy of users at risk.

At least this is what is deduced from the work carried out by a group of researchers at the University of Michigan who has discovered more than 400 applications, with millions of downloads, which are susceptible to malware attacks and data theft, and that are still hosted in the Google Play Store.

More than a thousand exploits that could be exploited

According to the conclusions of this discovery, millions of users could be at risk, although it is unknown how many could be affected. In fact, it is not even known if there could be affected users, but the truth is that more than 400 applications are "susceptible to open port attacks" that would allow the theft of user data.

This Investigation Group built a tool to analyze tens of thousands of apps from the Play Store, and identified 410 applications that generate unprotected open ports on the smartphones in which they are installed. In this way, through these "open ports", could potentially be attacked by hackers to steal user data or install malicious software remotely.

Although the complete list of the affected applications has not been published, their managers have already been informed so that they can take the appropriate measures.

In the set of affected apps, the team identified at least a thousand exploits, manually confirming the vulnerability in 57 of them, including Apps so popular that they have between 10 and 50 million downloads, and even an application that is pre-installed on some terminals, AirDroid.

Despite the potential detrimental effects, users can still rest easy as long as these exploits are patched before someone can take advantage of them.