VPN services have gained immense popularity recently, and there is certainly no shortage of reasons, although in many cases we see sales arguments for them that are not correct. This type of security solution was originally a business-focused tool, but thanks to the enormous increase in offerings, it’s now available to virtually everyone.

Using virtual private network services, we can e.g. improve the security of our data when we use public networksand also provide us with additional privacy when we access certain websites where we do not want our IP address recorded for any reason. In addition, some companies supplement their offer with other services, such as traffic analysis for security threats and the like.

Currently it is possible to find free paid VPN services, and also some included in some other service, such as the one we find in Google One. Obviously, what they offer is not the same, and in all cases it is more than advisable to get detailed information before using any of their services. And this is especially true if we are talking about those that are free, because we are talking about a type of service that has significant costs, which of course require some other type of compensation.

Image: MAN

And what compensation are we talking about? An investigation by Malwarebytes revealed this 28 Android VPN apps, 17 of them free, turn devices into proxies for criminal activity. The immediate result of this investigation was that Google removed all of these apps from its Android app store, and a list of them was also made public for potentially affected users to review and, if so, uninstall them and, if possible, use some additional cleaning protocol. They are the following:

• app. litevpn. android
• com.anims.keyboard
• com.blazestride
• com.bytebladevpn
• com.captaindroid.android12.launcher
• com.captaindroid.android13.launcher
• com.captaindroid.android14.launcher
• com.captaindroid.feeds
• com.captaindroid.free.old.classic.movies
• com.captaindroid.phone.comparison
• com.fastflyvpn
• com.fastfoxvpn
• com.fastlinevpn.android
• com.funnychar.ginganimation
• com.limo.edge
• com.okovpn.app
• com.phone_app.launcher
• com.quickflowvpn
• com.samplevpn
• com.securethunder
• com.shinesecure
• com.speedsurf
• com.swiftshield.android
• com.turbotrackvpn
• com. turbotunnelvpn
• com.yellowflashvpn
• io.vpnultra
• run.vpn

The most positive thing is that, in addition, researchers they were able to identify the underlying technology in all these applications and subsequently also made it public, allowing all necessary security measures to be taken to prevent it from being used again for this purpose. Additionally, it is to be expected that their developers have been flagged and therefore will not be able to re-upload apps to the Android Store.

That’s a pretty clear example anyway risks of using this type of free appsbecause there is a fairly active market in which cybercriminals offer any interested party the opportunity to use their proxy server networks to carry out their misdeeds with considerable impunity.