Why is CamScanner Banned? CamScanner Alternatives

Recently Google banned a very famous app CamScanner which had more than 100 Million downloads on Playstore. Getting CamScanner banned seems to be a good move but what is the exact reason?

If you are a student then Camscanner must be a very nostalgic application for you. If you were a student like me, CamScanner must have helped you to pass. But for those who don’t know about this application, here is a brief introduction for you.

What is CamScanner Application?

CamScanner is an application which lets you scan your physical document to store it in a digital format like PDF or JPEG image.

You just need to point your mobile camera to your paper document and click an image as you do with normal camera. Once clicked, CamScanner App allows you to edit the image, whiten it cleanly and store/share digitally.

This is a very useful function especially when you need to send someone a scanned copy of your documents. In fact, you need to upload scanned copies of your documents in several Government portals and forms.

Camscanner App totally replaced the scanner devices at least at the domestic level.

Why is Camscanner Banned?

Kaspersky researchers were the first people to detect some malicious activities of CamScanner. Camscanner app had a module called Trojan-Dropper Module. The module extracted and ran another malicious module from an encrypted file included in the app’s resources. This module downloads even more Trojan malware. This keeps on growing.

For instance, this malicious code may show intrusive ads and sign users up for paid subscriptions.

Kaspersky reported the issue to Google and it was immediately taken off from its Play Store. Kaspersky even published a detailed blog post on their official website. Here is the link for the same:

Malicious Android app had more than 100 million downloads in Google Play: Kaspersky

However, CamScanner says that the third-party advertising network penetrated this malicious code in their application.

Paid Version of CamScanner is Safe

It is noticeable that the paid version of CamScanner is still safe from any such malware. Also, it is still present on the Google Play Store to download. The only infected app was the Free version of Camscanner.

This gives us an important lesson. No matter how much an app is famous with millions of downloads on Play Store, it can still turn into malware at any given time.

What is CamScanner’s Official Statement on this matter?

Dear CamScanner Android Users，
Our CamScanner Team has recently detected that the advertisement SDK provided by a third-party named AdHub, integrated in Android Version 5.11.7, has been reported for containing a malicious module that produces unauthorized advertising clicks.
Injection of any suspicious codes violates the CamScanner Security Policy! We will take immediate legal actions against Adhub! Fortunately, after rounds of security check, we have not found any evidence showing the module could cause any leak of document data.
We have removed all the ads SDKs not certified by Google Play and a new version would be released. Meanwhile, you may follow the steps HERE to update to the new version.
We would appreciate your patience and understanding.

Source: CamScanner Official Website

What are the alternatives for CamScanner?

There are many of them. We often tend to ignore the alternatives when a certain brand has a monopoly in the industry. However, it is not the case that other similar apps don’t exist at all.

Free CamScanner Alternatives For Android:

1. Adobe Scan
2. Microsoft Office Lens
3. Scanbot
4. Open Note Scanner
5. Tiny Scanner
6. ABBYY FineScanner
7. Scannable
8. Fileee
9. WPS Office
10. Google Drive

These are some Free alternatives to Camscanner on Android phones. Presently, there are no malicious issues with the iOS version of Camscanner.

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In case you liked this post, you might want to read more about our dedicated category on Cybersecurity.

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