So, Is AnTuTu Benchmark Infecting Us With Malware?

AnTuTu Benchmark is the go-to for many who want to test out their phone's capabilities. As of this posting, it has a 4+ Star Rating, with over 925,000 reviewers on Google Play.

Recently I was in need of a Sprint-compatible phone that would work where my temporary (6-month) office would be. Not wanting to break the bank, I settled on the Essential Phone (pleasantly surprised, for sure).

I decided to load up and run the obligatory AnTuTu Benchmark. Irrelevant to this post, but it scored pretty well.

A couple days later, while browsing through my phone memory using Solid Explorer, I noticed something odd...so odd that it made my heart skip a beat. Keep in mind, I have Solid Explorer set to show hidden files, cause why not? Well, I noticed quite a lot of hidden files with random filenames. My mind immediately went to Malware, as this seemed pretty typical of Malware I've fought on Windows machines for decades.

At first I didn't make the connection....but later that day it dawned on me that it could be AnTuTu since that was the only thing I had installed recently. So I fired up another phone and installed AnTuTu and....Ah-HA! The same sort of files appeared on that device.

So now, intrigued, I started my Google searches for "AnTuTu Malware" and "AnTuTu Hidden Files" but got nothing of any significance in the results.

Best I can tell, if anyone else has noticed this, they aren't asking about it online anywhere. Keep in mind, the average user probably never installs a Third-Party File Manager; much less has it displaying Hidden Files. The typical user probably would never notice these files.

I've reached out to the developer for explanation and will report back. I will say, these files remain in Internal Memory even after clearing data and uninstalling AnTuTu.

See video below for the pudding...proof and all.