Specialists from the antivirus company Kaspersky Lab have discovered malware that can infect computers on Google Play, the Android application store, reports the Securelist website.

There are two programs; they are called Superclean and DroidCleaner. Both of them are free and created by the same developer - Smart.Apps. The description on Google Play states that the purpose of the programs is to clear memory and increase the performance of the smartphone.

Both programs operate on the same principle. After installation in the smartphone’s memory, they display a list of active processes and offer to “close” them. At the same time, secretly from the user, the applications download three malicious files from the Internet to the root directory of the SD card, including the executable svchosts.exe and the autorun file autorun.inf.

A computer becomes infected when a user connects a smartphone with dangerous files to it via USB. The virus manifests itself by recording sound from a microphone and sending the recordings to its “owners.”

Kaspersky Lab notes that Superclean and DroidCleaner can perform malicious operations on a smartphone. Programs ask the user for permission to perform actions such as turning on Wi-Fi, sending and deleting SMS, downloading information from an SD card, and so on.

As of the time of publication, Superclean and DroidCleaner notes were not available on Google Play. Google probably removed the apps from the store after receiving a complaint.

Android app infected computers