The three offending apps – Durak, Konka Russian History, and Iwold IQ Test– were pointed out on Avast forum page and have been since removed from Playstore.

To avoid suspicion, these apps laid low for a while after users downloaded them on their devices. After a few on/off cycles, which could take weeks or months, these malacious apps started spilling addware through notifications and pop up messages. Clicking these notifications will take you to unofficial app stores and download page of other third party apps, which pay for adds through these dubious sources. So if you already have any of these apps installed on your device, you should straightaway uninstall them.

Avast pointed out that Durak is the most widespread of these three apps, with over 5 million downloads.  If you see such suspicious notifications on your device, always long press the notification and click on the App info option when it appears. From the App info page, uninstall (or disable if they are pre-installed) these apps. Malware is not a new problem, but such apps making to Playstore insn’t a common phenomenon. we still think you don’ need to panic and go Antivirus shopping just yet.