You are recommended to uninstall these 8 frightening apps immediately!

We are using a number of popular apps like Clean Master, CM File Manger, Battery Doctor etc. without knowing the background defrauding scheme numbering in high millions.

The Chinese app developer Cheetah Mobile is a prominent Chinese app company responsible for the creation of a number of very popular apps on the market.It is pretty shocking to discover that the app developer has been defrauding advertisers for quite some time now in millions. Many mobile application developers generate revenue by promoting and recommending the installation of other apps inside their apps for a fee or a bounty that typically ranges from $0.50 to $3.00.

It was discovered that seven apps offered by Cheetah Mobile and one offered by one of its subsidiaries Kika Tech have all been involved in this fraud. These apps have been downloaded over two billion times which makes them highly popular among users. The way this fraud worked was that the apps would entice users into downloading new apps and then manipulating the program that is designed to ascertain where this referral came from. According to app analytics firm Kochava, 7 Android apps developed by Cheetah Mobile and 1 from Kika Tech with a total 2 billion downloads on Google Play Store have been accused of falsely claiming the credits for driving the installation of new apps in order to claim a fee or bounty.

What this essentially means is that Cheetah Mobile has been inflating the number of referrals that other apps have been getting from their apps. This has resulted in them getting millions of dollars that they never earned in the first place.

Here's the list of seven Cheetah Mobile apps and one Kika app, which received an investment from Cheetah Mobile in 2016, caught participating in the fraudulent ad scheme -

    * Clean Master (with 1 billion users)

    * Security Master (with 540 million users)

    * CM Launcher 3D (with 225 million users)

    * Battery Doctor (with 200 million users)

    * Cheetah Keyboard (with 105 million users)

    * CM Locker (with 105 million users)

    * CM File Manager (with 65 million users)

    * Kika Keyboard (owned by Kika Tech with 205 million users)

"This particular scheme exploits the fact that many app developers pay a fee, or bounty, that typically ranges from 50 cents to $3 to partners that help drive new installations of their apps. Kochava found that the Cheetah and Kika apps tracked when users downloaded new apps and used this data to inappropriately claim credit for having caused the download," explained Craig Silverman, a BuzzFeed news reporter, in a blog post. He added further, "The practice being executed by Cheetah and Kika is referred to as click flooding and click injection, and ensures these companies are rewarded an app-install bounty even when they played no role in an app's installation." 

While Kika Tech representatives have stated that they will look into this matter immediately, the representatives of Cheetah Mobile maintained that this was not their fault in any way, claiming that faulty SDK’s are responsible for the problems that arose.

Here is the flowchart to understand how a normal ad referral program versus a hijacked process works.

It should be noted that this didn’t really affect user experiences in any way. It just inflated the referral numbers in order to gain bonuses and bounties that were not earned. Time will tell whether Cheetah Mobile will be taken to court over this, but this is an important case that shows how fraud can be committed in the mobile app market.

So, if you have any of the above-listed apps installed on your Android device, you are recommended to uninstall them immediately.

These apps inappropriately claim credits for having caused the app downloads even when they played no role in the installations. The bounties, in this case, range in the millions of dollars.

However, Cheetah Mobile blamed third-party SDKs (software development kits) or ad networks for the click injection, but when Kochava pointed out the SDK involved in the click fraud activity is actually owned and developed by Cheetah Mobile itself, and not by third parties, Cheetah denied that its SDKs were involved in ad fraud.

As per Google’s remark, the company is still investigating Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech apps for any fraudulent activity reported by the app analytic firm.