DODGY DOWNLOADS

Android warning over 13 popular phone games that are secretly malware – uninstall them NOW

These dodgy apps have been exposed as fraudulent

GOOGLE has deleted 13 apps from its app store for Android phones – after it turned out they were scams.

The apps also posed as video games, but were actually malicious fakes designed to show you ads when you unlocked your phone.

The dodgy apps were first exposed by , a security researcher at ESET.

He spotted more than a dozen apps in the official Google Play Store, all created by a mysterious developer named Luiz Pinto.

Together, the apps had been installed on Android devices more than 560,000 times.

And according to Stefanko, the apps had "no legitimate functionality".

The phoney games included "Truck Cargo Simulator" and "Extreme Car Driving", but none of them actually worked.

Stefanko said that after launching, the app would hide itself.

Then the app would download an additional APK – the file type for Android phone apps – and make the user install it.

This new APK was called Game Centre, and would also hide itself.

Then whenever you unlocked the device, it would display ads.

This would almost certainly generate cash for the app's developer – at your expense.

A Google spokesperson told The Sun that the apps had been removed from the Google Play Store.

"Providing a safe and secure experience for our users is our top priority," the spokesperson explained.

"We appreciate the researcher’s report and their efforts to help make Google Play more secure.

"The apps violated our policies and have been removed from the Play Store."

If you've downloaded any of the following apps, we recommend uninstalling them now:

The easiest way to spot the apps is if they were created by Luiz O Pinto.

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