Dr. Web Labs, the leading Russian security research firm, has found out something scary – dozens of apps available through the Google Play Store are coming packed with a trojan named Android.Xiny. This trojan is being detected as Xynyin or Suaban by some other antivirus vendors. The apps that introduce this trojan into your Android phone are still available on the Google Play Store at this moment (29th January 2016). Google is surely going to remove these malicious apps soon from the Play Store, but if you have already installed any one of these apps, you can detect and remove this Android.Xiny malware from your phone this way:
- Download and install Dr. Web Antivirus Light on your Android phone.
- Launch Dr.Web Antivirus and update the virus definitions. Then tap on the Scanner button.
- Choose Full scan to scan everything on the internal as well as external memory cards.
- The scan may take a long time to finish if you have a lot of files on your memory cards. During the scan, it may make audible alerts when it detects the malware. After the scan is complete, it will show you if Android.Xiny trojan is detected.
- Touch the ellipsis against each of the trojan infested file and choose to Delete these files.
Android.Xiny trojan is a very dangerous malware as it can download APK files hidden inside image files (using some of the basic steganography techniques). Many of the antivirus apps do not scan the image files thinking them as harmless and this way it has evaded detection so far. This trojan can also receive instructions from command and control center being run by cyber-criminals remotely. This is why it is important that you scan and remove this Android.Xiny trojan from your and your friends’ phones.