Avast, the global cybersecurity and research firm, claims that thousands of Android devices including those from manufacturers like ZTE and Archos are being shipped with pre-installed malware globally including in India.
These devices are infected with an adware named ‘Cosiloon’, and it creates an overlay to display an advertisement over a webpage within the user’s browser. It also reported that these devices are not certified by Google.
In a statement the company said that, “Thousands of users are affected and in the past month alone, Avast Threat Labs has seen the latest version of the adware on around 18,000 devices belonging to Avast users located in more than 100 countries, including Russia, Italy, Germany, India, Mexico, the UK as well as some users in the US.”
Unfortunately, this adware can’t be removed as it is integrated at the firmware level. Avast said that it is in touch with Google, and the later is working on addressing such issues in future and is encouraging firmware manufactures to address such issues at the earliest.
