Android.Joker
Android.Joker is an Android trojan family repeatedly identified by Doctor Web on Google Play. Its core behavior is subscription fraud: the malware is designed to subscribe Android device owners to paid services, including via WAP click flows. Across the cited reporting periods, Dr.Web reported numerous Android.Joker samples on Google Play, including over 50 samples in Q3 2025, more than 20 in Q4 2025, and multiple additional samples in Q1 2026. Reported install counts include at least 370,000 total installs for the Q1 2026 Google Play samples, at least 263,000 combined downloads for newly discovered Google Play malware in Q4 2025 that included Android.Joker, and inclusion among more than 180 threats on Google Play with over 2.165 million total downloads during 2025.
The malware was disguised as a variety of legitimate-looking Android applications, including messengers, system optimization and other system tools, image-editing and photography apps, camera apps, document and PDF-related apps, movie-watching apps, and other software. Specific examples named by Dr.Web include the Google Play apps Clean Boost, which contained Android.Joker.2412, and Convert Text to PDF, which contained Android.Joker.2422.
High-confidence associations in the provided content are limited to Google Play distribution and subscription fraud against Android users. No specific threat actor attribution is provided in the source material. The primary targeted platform is Android, and the victim impact described is unauthorized enrollment in paid mobile services. The main indicators in the content are family- and sample-level names such as Android.Joker, Android.Joker.2412, and Android.Joker.2422, along with the malicious app names Clean Boost and Convert Text to PDF.
Hunt this family in your stack
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
Techniques & procedures
2 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Initial Access
1 technique
Initial Access
Stealth
1 technique
Stealth
Members of the Android.HiddenAds family are often distributed as popular and harmless applications... The trojans were concealed in a number of tools for optimizing the operation of Android devices, and were distributed under the guise of messengers, multimedia, and other software.
Recent activity
7 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Android trojan family distributed via Google Play and disguised as legitimate apps to subscribe victims to paid services.
Android trojan distributed via Google Play that subscribes victims to paid services.
Android trojan family focused on premium-service subscription fraud, distributed via trojanized apps on Google Play.
Trojan family used for premium-service subscription fraud, distributed via Google Play disguised as benign apps (messengers, utilities, editors, document tools).
The version that knows your environment.
Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.
Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.