[Android] The “immortal” virus strain appeared, automatically reinstalling even if the user restored the factory settings

Imagine that one day, your beloved Android smartphone suddenly gets infected by a virus, you have tried every way to “erase” this virus but not including resetting the original factory settings, that would be a nightmare.

However, that nightmare may come true, when according to a report by the ZDNet website, an extremely malicious virus strain now has the ability to reinstall itself, making Android users nearly impossible to remove. this virus. Known as xHelper, the virus was first detected in March and five months later, it infected 32,000 Android smartphones worldwide. That number has reached 45,000 smartphones this month. According to Symantec , there are 131 new Android smartphones infected each day, about 2,400 per month.

Like other dangerous viruses, xHelper will automatically display malicious ads on the user’s smartphone screen as well as spam content to bring revenue to the person behind the virus. xHelper also automatically installs malicious applications or contains ads from Google Play on infected smartphones for commission purposes. The virus is infected on users’ smartphones through downloading pirated Android applications on some unreliable websites. These unreliable sites often lead users to an Android app hosting site, where the applications all contain the xHelper virus.

Once a user installs these pirated apps on his Android smartphone, xHelper will install them as a separate download and delete the original application that was attached so that the user cannot remove it. In fact, Android users will never exit xHelper because it will reinstall even after restoring to factory settings! This is still a mystery for both Symantec and Malwarebytes software developers. Some victims noticed that even after deleting xHelper and disabling the “Install apps from unknown sources” option, the virus still came back on users’ Android smartphones.

Although some users have tried running a paid version of antivirus software on their Android smartphones, it seems that antivirus software is not doing much with xHelper virus either. The scary thing about xHelper is that it can steal the banking information, passwords and other personal information of infected users. So if your Android smartphone has not been infected with this “immortal” virus, be careful before downloading any applications or games from websites.

Source : TechTalk