> but the real issue appears to have been the apps’ use of resource-monetization services that grant cybercriminals access to devices and residential IPs for malicious activity.
So the apps are malware that function as residential proxies.
It's pretty incredible how many apps have this kind of functionality. There are some sketch af sites that sell access to these proxies. I took a look to do some web scraping a while ago. In the end, I just ended up using TOR with a Rust API and that worked a lot better and made me feel a lot less dirty, in addition to being free.
So the apps are malware that function as residential proxies.
Way to bury the lede.