RiskIQ warned mobile apps capable of impersonating brands and fooling customers are increasing, with the Google Play store still one of the most likely place for such apps to be housed.

The digital threat management company, which released its Q3 Mobile Threat Landscape report, found malicious apps were increasing following a study of 120 different mobile app stores and more than 2 billion daily scanned resources.

RiskIQ experts added some app stores are being created and pumped up with a huge number of malicious apps.

There was also an increase in blacklisted apps compared with Q2, the company stated following its analysis into app stores which hosted the greatest number of malicious apps and the most prolific developers of such apps.

Google Play had the most malicious apps housed on it, followed by apps housed online (not on an app store). Third place was the AndroidAPKDescargar app store.

The top developer of blacklisted apps in Q3, Nyi Subang Larang, worked exclusively in the Play Store.

Despite this, Google’s share of malicious apps fell from 8 per cent in Q2 to 4 per cent in Q3.

Botnet attack
Coinciding with an increase in dangerous and imitation apps, RiskIQ also said Q3 saw the emergence of a “massive” mobile botnet attack known as WireX.

RiskIQ added it collaborated with players including Google and Akamai to take down the threat, which affected at least 70,000 Android users globally. Around 300 apps tied to WireX were identified in total, which RiskIQ said Google blocked and removed from all Android devices.

The malicious apps in question “masquerade” as media and video players, ringtones and storage managers.

Once installed, they are able to activate hidden functionality to communicate with command and control servers and launch attacks, whether or not the app was in use.