Uninstall these shady media editing Android apps right away to stop your data from being misused

Even though the world is moving towards the digital platforms in all aspects but the growth of digitalization also brings the risk of data breach and violations. There’s nothing scares more than your personal information being used without your consent and it’s not the first time Android app developers abused the permission granted by users.

Recent discovery by VPNpro reveals a new spyware app with over 100 million downloads on Google Play Store and the developer of this spyware app has some other shady apps with more than 50 million installs in the Play store.

According to the report by VPNpro, the developer of these apps masked the origins and technical abuses behind so many apps on Play Store.

Google has a history of pulling out the networks of apps that abuse the user permissions once installed. However, evaluating the right permission types for a developer or app is still a tricky job. And this is where some app creators try to play their dirty games by taking advantage of Android data permissions.

Even though Google always encourages developers to follow its guidelines but the abuse of user permissions should never be taken for granted as it puts millions of users at risk.

The developer blamed of spyware is Hangzhou-based QuVideoInc with its very popular app named VivaVideo. This free video editing app has more than 100 million installs on Play Store.

According to the reports by VPNpro, QuVideo has its three apps available on the Play Store and also on the Apple's App Store but the violations of permission on iOS devices can’t happen so easily.

To operate, Viva Video asks a variety of permissions which include the ability of the app to write/read to external drives and user’s specific GPS location. This permission of GPS enables the app to send the location data of users up to 14,000 times in a day even if the app is not being used.

According to VPNpro, these types of apps have Trojans hidden inside the apps which can steal bank information of users without them even knowing it at all.

The report by VPNpro mapped out more than six apps by the same developer that needs to be used with caution and after analyzing these apps have more than 157 million installs on Google Play Store and the numbers of these apps are huge.

The following are the six apps by the same developer:
  • Tempo - Music Video Editor with Effects
  • SlidePlus - Photo Slideshow Maker
  • VivaCut - Pro Video Editor APP
  • VidStatus - Status Videos & Status Downloader
  • VivaVideo PRO Video Editor HD
  • VivaVideo
Until Google takes strict action against permission abuse, the users should stop using such apps to secure themselves from being a victim of such abuse but it is completely up to the users to decide if they want these malicious apps installed on their phones or not.


The only way to be secure from being a victim is by paying attention to the permissions you’re allowing to these apps and if any permission seems out of ordinary the best solution is to uninstall the app from your phone.



Read next: Google Play Store Removed Over 1K Creeperware Apps Back In 2019, And Now Some Are Making A Comeback
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