Triada is an Android threat known within the malware research field for a couple of years. Despite that, it still remains a very interesting threat as their authors did something very rarely seen in any malicious software – instead of evading detection they embraced it. Triada was first detected preinstalled on the system image of some Android low-end devices in mid-2017.

As soon as we detected these applications, we reached out to OEM partners to address this threat and we gained a unique insight into Triada’s evolution and tactics. This presentation will cover Google Play Protect’s findings and present previously unrevealed aspects of Triada and the extent to which it backdoored OEM system images. We will also cover how our unprecedented coordination with OEMs led us to update system images across the Android ecosystem.