More than 620,000 devices affected by a subscription Trojan that spreads through photo-editing apps

8 May. (Portaltic/EP) –

A team of researchers has discovered a new subscription trojan called fleckpe and that it is integrated into different photo editing applications included in the official Google Play store and downloaded to more than 620,000 devices.

The subscription trojans are variants that infiltrate the ‘smartphones’ under the guise of legitimate apps that subscribe to paid services without users being aware of it.

This ‘malware’, which has been active since 2022, has managed to get into applications that offer filters for photographs and wallpapers, such as Beauty Slimming Photo Editor or Photo Effect Editor.

So they have explained it Kaspersky researchers, who have indicated that they have noticed a total of 11 applications infected by Fleckpe on Google Play, which would have been installed on more than 620,000 devices.

Other applications affected by this malicious software include Gif Camera Editor Pro, Night Cam Rea Pro, Microclip Video Editor, Toolbox Photo Editor, H4KS Wallpaper, and Beauty Camera Plus Photo Editor.

The cybersecurity company has ensured that the application store has removed these applications “as soon as it was published” the report in which it determined that they were dangerous. However, from Kaspersky they announce that “malicious actors could have implemented other applications not yet discovered.”