Facebook Sues Two Asian App Developers Over Malware on Android apps

Facebook has reportedly sued two Android app developers - Hong Kong-based LionMobi and Singapore-based JediMobi - for allegedly infecting users with malware that robotically clicked on ads to generate revenue. Facebook in its complaint filed in San Francisco federal court said that through the practice of “click injection fraud," one of the apps generated more than 40 million ad impressions and 1.7 million clicks through Facebook’s Audience Network over a three-month period at the end of last year.

It further said, "click injection fraud—where developers made apps available on the Google Play store to infect their users’ phones with malware (which) created fake user clicks on Facebook ads that appeared on the users’ phones, giving the impression that the users had clicked on the ads."

“At times, the malware was delivered in the form of ‘updates’ to the apps and, after October 2018, the malware was included directly in the apps," the complaint further went on to state to the San Francisco federal court. A Forbes report quoting Facebook saying said the two developers "generated unearned payouts from Facebook for misrepresenting that a real person had clicked on the ads." The report added that all the advertisers impacted by the malware have been refunded.