Possible Virus - Play Store opens randomly to specific games/apps

[BrianBaker]

Son of a B!!! Music Paradise Pro...My HTC One m8 was automatically opening to the play store to download some stupid game every 12 hours(I did a hard reset not knowing what the issue was).Then tonight my Nexus 7 started doing it so i searched a little deeper and found this thread...Deleted that app and all is well again on my Nexus 7.I wish i found this place first before factory resetting my M8..For anyone trying to find the app causing the problem but dont want to wait 12-24 hours to see if a pop up comes again just change the date on your device ahead 1 day and lock and unlock the device and see if the pop up goes away..

 

[monsieurms]

I also have the issue and don't have the paradise pro.

There may be more than one infected app. But....someone should really contact Paradise Pro. Assuming they were spoofed rather than at fault, they may be able to be clearer about what is happening. OR, maybe start with Google Play support.

 

[Shannon Loyd]

Well I'm gonna go delete some more apps..I've probably deleted 15 already I'll try to leave a list so people know it's not them.. Maybe I can find the other culprit... be back later

 

[Brian Anderson117]

Has anyone found any other apps that cause this problem? Because I too, don't have music paradise.

 

[Shannon Loyd]

Has anyone found any other apps that cause this problem? Because I too, don't have music paradise.

Well so far it's not Uber, Napa, Cogs(game), Crazy Mechanics(game), Download All files, employee schedule clock in, when I work, slender man( don't know where that came from),, pixel gun 3d, cat toys for tablets and phones( my cats love this one). Poshmark, white noise baby,( my daughter must have put done of these on here)... I'll put on more after a while..

 

[meaganrwilliams]

So here's a thought. Since the problem we're experiencing seems to involve AdMob (based on the URL previously mentioned: admob-redirect.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com), maybe we can identify the culprit app based on a review of the applications that integrate with the admob ad network. Unfortunately, this doesn't narrow it down much, because based on my phone's scan, this is (by a long shot) the most prevalent ad network, with 30+ apps using it (the next most used network on my phone is MobileAppTracking with only 5 apps).

You can take a look yourself using app brain ad detector: https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...spot.swisscodemonkeys.detector&token=liiQgxd-

So -- anyone think it's reasonable to assume that the app is somewhere in this list? Tried to group them into suspect / recently installed apps and apps that I'm fairly sure aren't the culprit -- but what do I know? Do you see any overlap between these apps and ones you have?

Recently Installed and / or potentially suspect
- App Cache Cleaner
- Music Download Paradise Pro
- The Weather Channel (wouldn't normally suspect twc, but someone else in another thread I read mentioned the app)

Recently Installed but likely not the culprit based on reputation / prior app use:
- AllTrails
- Amazon Wallet
- Draft Punk 2014

I've had these for a long time and trust that they're not the culprit:
- CamScanner
- CBS Sports
- Cerberus
- Chromecast
- Circa
- DynamicNotifications
- CBS Sports Fantasy
- FatSecret
- GasBuddy
- Google Opinion Rewards
- hoopla
- IPC Cast Proxy
- LinkedIn
- n7player
- Nextdoor
- OpenTable
- Pandora
- Plants Vs Zombies 2
- Quickoffice
- Sheets
- Smart Voice Recorder
- Speedtest
- theScore
- Trello
- Twitter
- Yelp

I have Music Download paradise pro and I am having this same issue.

 

[mhawkins21]

I think I found a solution!!!! I have an S4 & I've had the same problem for the last 2 days. What I noticed is that this link was only popping up on my Chrome Browser and not the other browsers I have installed on my phone. I uninstalled the browser then reinstalled it. 24 hrs later....no problem since. Hopefully this can help everyone else!

 

[monsieurms]

Well so far it's not Uber, Napa, Cogs(game), Crazy Mechanics(game), Download All files, employee schedule clock in, when I work, slender man( don't know where that came from),, pixel gun 3d, cat toys for tablets and phones( my cats love this one). Poshmark, white noise baby,( my daughter must have put done of these on here)... I'll put on more after a while..

Poshmark is one of the apps that the admob link redirects to in PlayStore....Did you DL it before or after this started?

 

[jfisha]

I've had music paradise downloader for awhile, but I'm guessing this issue probably happened with an automatic update. I just uninstalled it. Let's see what happens.

 

[asielcode7]

Looks like you have found the culprit. ..Music Paradise! Also if everyone that experienced this could leave a review warning others that this is a malware app and report the app to Google as well so ithers won't be affected.

I am going to leave a review right now. Stupid music paradise......

 

[Elisa Cohoon]

I got rid of my weather channel app and that seems to have solved my issue with the same pop up. I also updated all my apps in play after I deleted weather channel app and rebooted phone. Hope this helps.

 

[NolaBabi]

Within the last 2 weeks or so I started getting the admob popup thing which opens the playstore also. I have a Galaxy S5 and when I open my screen from sleep mode or if I go to a webpage from another site, it pops up. I too have Music Paradise downloaded, but have had this app for months with no issues. I'd love a solution. It's becoming annoying!

 

[Shannon Loyd]

Poshmark is one of the apps that the admob link redirects to in PlayStore....Did you DL it before or after this started?

I did download before but months ago and I uninstalled and still have it.. =( And to to Mhawkins21 mines popping up on my Firefox so I think it's just popping up on whatever default browser we have chosen..

 

[big bad ass rome]

Ok so I was having the same problem as everyone here after I delete the last two apps I downloaded the problem was fixed. So if your having this problem delete music download paradise and sound cloud. Let me know if your having this problem and have the same apps. Also if the problem goes away. Thanks

 

[Shannon Loyd]

Yup..bubble shooter..I deleted it this morning..No more ads.. So I went to the store and read some reviews and other people have talked about the pop ups and going to the store and stuff like that too so if anyone has bubble shooter and that's it too I'm sure there are others too.. keep an eye out and just go to the play store and read some reviews.... Thank gawd that's over... Good luck the rest of you... ~SHANNON~

 

[Rev88]

I'm fairly positive its music paradise pro. After it updated I started having the same issues.

 

[Stang5_o2002]

Deleted Music paradise pro around 6 this morning. Not a single pop up all day after that. Before I deleted it, it was happening every 4 or 5 times I unlocked my phone screen.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[heatheranne1234]

I had the music downloader app as well (paradise pro). I downloaded the app pry 6 months ago, I haven't had the pop-up that link me out to Chrome then directly to Google Play Store to various games until yesterday. I read this blog and removed this app earlier today and haven't had ANY popups. They must have added the pop ups later?

The music downloader didn't work that well anyway. Most songs were not the full song or they were covers of that song (i.e. not that original track as it said it was). I signed up for Spotify months ago and LOVE it. I'll just stick w/that. Best of luck everyone!

 

[peacefulberry]

Just noticed that when searching for music paradise, the 4th choice is an ad scanner/detection app...interesting.

 

[Stefania Rovera]

been having hte same problem for last few days but dont have music paradise or soundcloud. i do have ebay though so i'll uninstall that and see if it works. i've already cleared my interenet cache several times and that didn't work