This Android App Was Recording Thousands of Users Without Consent, Now Removed From Play Store

Android apps have a notorious track record of evading privacy by either acting malicious or accessing the phone to steal data or track them. Now a new kind of issue has come up with Android apps where one of the apps available through the Play Store started recording users without taking their permission for accessing the microphone. As per the details provided in a report by Ars Technica, the app named iRecorder Screen Recorder was the guilty party which indulged in this privacy nightmare almost a year after it first came out on the Play Store for users to download. Stefanko in his post explains that the app was released in September 2021 but one year later an update issued for the app included a malicious code that started the whole privacy breach for around 50,000 users who had downloaded the app by the time Google got it removed from the Play Store. The biggest concern with sleeper apps like these is that they manage to circumvent Google’s so-called rigid security checks for apps on the Play Store, and a year later they start acting in the worst possible manner, infecting devices with malicious code that can have serious ramifications for the users.