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T1628.001: Suppress Application Icon

View on MITRE ATT&CK The MITRE Corporation · Published 17/12/2025 22:48 · Modified 27/03/2026 01:41

Essential information

MITRE technique ID
T1628.001
Confidence
100/100
Revoked
No
Published
17/12/2025 22:48
Modified
27/03/2026 01:41
Author / Source
The MITRE Corporation

Platforms

android

Description

A malicious application could suppress its icon from being displayed to the user in the application launcher. This hides the fact that it is installed, and can make it more difficult for the user to uninstall the application. Hiding the application's icon programmatically does not require any special permissions. This behavior has been seen in the BankBot/Spy Banker family of malware.(Citation: android-trojan-steals-paypal-2fa)(Citation: sunny-stolen-credentials)(Citation: bankbot-spybanker) Beginning in Android 10, changes were introduced to inhibit malicious applications’ ability to hide their icon. If an app is a system app, requests no permissions, or does not have a launcher activity, the application’s icon will be fully hidden. Further, if the device is fully managed or the application is in a work profile, the icon will be fully hidden. Otherwise, a synthesized activity is shown, which is a launcher icon that represents the app’s details page in the system settings. If the user clicks the synthesized activity in the launcher, they are taken to the application’s details page in the system settings.(Citation: Android 10 Limitations to Hiding App Icons)(Citation: LauncherApps getActivityList)

Kill chain phases

Kill chainPhase
mitre-mobile-attack defense-evasion

Marking (TLP)

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External references