Here’s a scary thought: Mobile devices may soon come with pre-installed malware on required system apps. While it might sound like a grim foretelling, pre-installed mobile malware is an unfortunate reality of the future.

In the past, we’ve seen pre-installed malware with the notorious Adups threat, among others. “Pre-installed” means the malware comes already installed on a device at the system level, thus, it cannot be removed; only disabled. However, remediating these iterations of pre-installed malware is possible by using a work-around to uninstall apps for the current user. This method involves connecting the mobile device to a PC and using the ADB command line tool. Follow our guide, removal instructions for Adups, to find out more.