{"id":37267,"date":"2014-08-12T22:31:56","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T05:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=37267"},"modified":"2025-08-07T21:48:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T04:48:18","slug":"flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Adobe Flash Player Installer Scams Reappear on Google Play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adobe Flash Player has been a boon to Android malware creators for a long time. These developers have taken advantage of Flash&#8217;s popularity to create <a title=\"\u2018FakeInstaller\u2019 Leads the Attack on Android Phones\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/fakeinstaller-leads-the-attack-on-android-phones\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">premium SMS Trojans<\/a> and droppers, as well as other types of malware. McAfee Labs has detected a common scam app&#8211;Android\/Fladstep.B&#8211;on the Google Play store since the end of 2013. The malware tricks users into paying money via PayPal to install Flash Player. The malware is removed from the store every time it appears, but we have found that the same attacks are again on Google Play.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37269\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-1.png\" alt=\"fladstep-cd-1\" width=\"257\" height=\"211\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<address style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Examples of Flash Player installer scam apps on Google Play store.<\/em><\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Multiple apps claiming to be installers of Flash Player have been published by several app developer accounts since the end of June. The malware is short lived, but the total download count of those apps amounts to more than 50,000, according to Google Play statistics. These apps were quickly removed, but they reappear soon with different names and developer accounts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-37270\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-2.png\" alt=\"fladstep-cd-2\" width=\"288\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-2.png 288w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-2-168x300.png 168w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<address style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>A Flash Player installer scam app that has been just published.<\/em><\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When launched, this scam app simply opens a web page that requests users to pay a \u20ac<span class=\"st\">5 <\/span>fee via PayPal to install Flash Player. The web page is hosted on a server located in Turkey in some apps and the United States in other apps. If the user pays the fee with the PayPal account, the web page shows a download link to Flash Player that is the legitimate URL of Adobe\u2019s download site.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37271\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-3.png\" alt=\"fladstep-cd-3\" width=\"288\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-3.png 288w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-3-168x300.png 168w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<address style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>The malicious web page requesting users to pay with PayPal for Flash Player installation.<\/em><\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-4.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-37272\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-4.png\" alt=\"fladstep-cd-4\" width=\"288\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-4.png 288w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-4-168x300.png 168w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<address style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>PayPal payment screen.<\/em><\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In short, victims are tricked into paying money for a free download. The scammer might claim that the installer app provides an &#8220;added value&#8221; to automatically detect the version of the Flash Player appropriate to the user\u2019s Android OS version, but this version identification is easy to do by checking Adobe\u2019s download site.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-5.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-37273\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-5.png\" alt=\"fladstep-cd-5\" width=\"288\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-5.png 288w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-5-168x300.png 168w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<address style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>The download link shown after payment points to the real Adobe download site.<\/em><\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-6.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-37274\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-6.png\" alt=\"fladstep-cd-6\" width=\"288\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-6.png 288w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-6-168x300.png 168w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<address style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>The Flash Player downloaded from the Adobe\u2019s site.<\/em><\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Another sin of this scam app is that the app\u2019s description page on Google Play shows some screen images including one that implies the user can get both Flash Player and its &#8220;tutorial.&#8221; However, no tutorial is supplied, even to users who pay; they get exactly the same package as everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-7.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-37275\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-7.png\" alt=\"fladstep-cd-7\" width=\"288\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-7.png 288w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-7-168x300.png 168w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<address style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>The screen shot on Google Play that promises a tutorial.<\/em><\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Last, paying with PayPal gives the user\u2019s name and email address to the app developer, who can easily collect and abuse the personal information of these victims. Those who are careless enough to be scammed even once can easily be targeted in future scams.<\/p>\n<p>Flash Player will continue to benefit malware authors due to its popularity. And this type of scam will continue because criminals can easily and directly get money from their victims using popular online payment services. Users should be very careful about the sellers of products when using online payments, for example, by checking that the name and contact information of the company or seller is explicitly displayed and that the product is really what they want to buy.<\/p>\n<h2>Fight Back With McAfee<\/h2>\n<p><a title=\"McAfee Mobile Security\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafeemobilesecurity.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">McAfee Mobile Security<\/a> detects these Android scam apps as variants of Android\/Fladstep, and also blocks browser access to websites hosting this scam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adobe Flash Player has been a boon to Android malware creators for a long time. These developers have taken advantage&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":631,"featured_media":156617,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1838,442],"tags":[37,214],"coauthors":[3220],"class_list":["post-37267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile-security","category-mcafee-labs","tag-android","tag-mobile-security1"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Adobe Flash Player Installer Scams Reappear on Google Play | McAfee Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Adobe Flash Player has been a boon to Android malware creators for a long time. These developers have taken advantage of Flash&#039;s popularity to create\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Adobe Flash Player Installer Scams Reappear on Google Play | McAfee Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Adobe Flash Player has been a boon to Android malware creators for a long time. These developers have taken advantage of Flash&#039;s popularity to create\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"McAfee Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/McAfee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-13T05:31:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-08T04:48:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/fladstep-cd-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"257\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"211\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daisuke Nakajima\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@McAfee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@McAfee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daisuke Nakajima\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daisuke Nakajima\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/#\/schema\/person\/18bbfc32a1b7bde3974191e65de956d6\"},\"headline\":\"Adobe Flash Player Installer Scams Reappear on Google Play\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-08-13T05:31:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-08T04:48:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/\"},\"wordCount\":576,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/614x300_Blog_googleplay.png\",\"keywords\":[\"android\",\"mobile security\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Mobile Security\",\"McAfee Labs\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/\",\"name\":\"Adobe Flash Player Installer Scams Reappear on Google Play | McAfee Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/flash-player-installer-scams-reappear-google-play\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/614x300_Blog_googleplay.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-08-13T05:31:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-08T04:48:18+00:00\",\"description\":\"Adobe Flash Player has been a boon to Android malware creators for a long time. 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