Trustlook Discovers Aggressive Adware that Impacts Millions of Mobile Users

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - March 29, 2016) - Trustlook Mobile Security, an innovator in next-generation security solutions, has discovered a sneaky strain of adware across two popular and widely-used ad libraries. At first, any app that includes these ad libraries behaves normally, but within a few hours a myriad of pop-up advertisements (i.e. adware) are displayed, even when the app is not in use. And many of these pop ups can't be closed. It becomes a never ending loop of frustration for users.

Trustlook discovered this adware when doing research on the popular game Happy Fighting Landlords, which has more than 7 million users. Trustlook was able to decrypt the parameters of the ad libraries in the app, which revealed the problematic behavior. Trustlook also discovered that these ad libraries look for rooted phones and are able to run a service as a root user, which differs from other adware and further highlights the dangers of rooting a phone.

"This is one of the more aggressive adware discoveries we have found," said Jinjian Zhai, Head of Research at Trustlook. "Not only because of the popularity of the app we tested, but also because of the widespread use of these sophisticated ad libraries. It is a serious issue for tens of millions of app users."

Just like malware, adware is becoming a significant problem for mobile users. In fact, according to PC Mag, approximately 15 percent of all Android apps can contain adware.

Trustlook has released an adware detection feature in the latest version of its product. Using a sophisticated model and countless hours of research, Trustlook is able to finely and efficiently comb through a mobile device. If Trustlook detects adware, the user will be notified and will be able to uninstall the application.

For a complete look at Trustlook's research of the Happy Fighting Landlords app, please visit http://blog.trustlook.com/.

About Trustlook Inc.
Trustlook is a global leader in next-generation mobile security solutions, and has been named a leading application by AV-TEST. Trustlook provides the first advanced persistent threat mobile security solutions to detect advanced malware. Founded in July, 2013 by Allan Zhang, the company is managed by leading experts in the tech industry from Palo Alto Networks, FireEye, Google and Yahoo.