They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. Back in May 2019, Google vetoed Huawei’s access to Android licenses, which eventually resulted in the brand developing its own operating system (HarmonyOS). Well, Reddit forums are filling up with posts claiming that Huawei phones have started displaying a message alerting the user that the Google app is a virus. Specifically, the notification reads “Security threat. Google appears to be infected. Immediate uninstallation is recommended”. Just below appears a button through which it is possible to automatically uninstall the application. In other images shared by users it is possible to view more data. In particular, Huawei recognizes it as a Trojan virus (TrojanSMS-PA) with a ‘High’ risk level.
But that’s not all. Huawei goes further by stating that “this application has been detected sending SMS privately and enticing users to pay for adult content, stealing private information or downloading/installing applications without consent, which may lead to intellectual property damage and privacy issues”. Evidently, if the device is scanned with a third-party antivirus, it does not detect the Google app as malware. Google has not commented on the issue, as its services are not available on the latest Huawei phones. For their part, some users have commented that, to solve the problem, simply delete the cache of the Phone Manager application, which is installed as standard on the terminal. We will have to stay tuned to see if it reappears in the future.