Urgent warning as 300,000 Android owners infected by dangerous app – and it’s bad news if you have Facebook

FACEBOOK users have been warned about a login stealing hack that's thought to have affected more than 300,000 Android users.

A dodgy trojan called Schoolyard Bully was found lurking in a number of apps available on the Google Play Store as well as third party app stores, according to experts at Zimperium zLabs.

The apps are usually disguised as innocent tools related to education.

But actually they try to get hold of your Facebook login details.

Unsuspecting victims can find their email address, phone number, password, ID and name stolen as a result.

They pull it off by using a Facebook login feature within their apps.

Fortunately, Google has now removed the apps caught doing it.

Most of the victims were located in Vietnam.

That's because the apps are all in Vietnamese, so you need not worry unless you've downloaded an app in the language recently.

Experts believe more than 300,000 devices were caught out from across 71 countries.

"The actual number of countries could be more than what was accounted for because the applications are still being found in third-party app stores," Zimperium zLabs said.

"To ensure your Android users are protected from the trojan malware, we recommend a quick risk assessment."

A Google spokesperson told The Sun: “The apps identified have been removed from Google Play.

“We take security and privacy seriously, and when we find apps that violate our policies, we take action.”

It's worth doing a quick scan with any antivirus protection apps you have.

There's also Google's free Google Play Protect which alerts you to any dodgy apps that you've downloaded.

Here's what Google Play protect does...

• Checks Google Play store apps for safety before download
• Checks for non-Play store apps that may be harmful
• Warns you about harmful apps
• Deactivates or removes harmful apps
• Warns you about apps that violate policy by hiding or misrepresenting themselves
• Sends you privacy alerts about apps that can use permissions to access your personal data
• Reset app permissions to protect your privacy

Of course, Google's protection feature might not catch all instances of bad behaviour – so you still need to be careful online.

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