Google Removes Hundreds Of Android Apps From Play Store To Disrupt Massive AI SlopAds Ad Campaign

The Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team at Human Security have discovered an ad and click fraud campaign dubbed SlopAds. The operation resulted in over 224 apps that have been downloaded 38 million times in 228 countries. It was a sophisticated effort that deployed several obfuscation techniques designed to evade security researchers and even Google itself.

The name was derived from the fact the threat actors heavily used AI apps and services as part of its infrastructure for this campaign, which included ChatGPT, ChatGLM and AIGuide. The voluminous number of apps created to be used by the attackers also “have the veneer of being mass produced, a la “AI slop.”

One of the more notable aspects of this campaign is the lengths the attackers went to in order to fly under the radar. First, these apps conduct a variety of checks on a user’s device using a mobile marketing ...