Many apps pose as legitimate apps, and users need to be wary of these, especially in the case of two renowned secure messaging apps, Signal Messenger and Telegram.
Security experts have already flagged fake apps disguised as these two applications, saying that they could steal a user's data, with Google Play already taking action against them and removing them from the platform.
Fake apps are rampant nowadays and have been significantly copying the design and likeness of their legitimate counterparts, all in the name of stealing sensitive information and money.
Delete These Fake Signal Messenger and Telegram Apps
SET, a global security research firm, released a report regarding the fake apps it discovered on the Google Play Store, with these fraudulent services mimicking that of Signal Messenger and Telegram on Android.
These apps are named "Signal Plus Messenger" and "FlyGram," both claiming to be messaging apps that provide the same services as the ones they copied. It was also available on the Samsung Galaxy Store, extending its reach to the South Korean company's platform.
The researchers claimed that the Signal Plus Messenger spies on the victim's communications by secretly linking it to the legitimate Signal Messenger on the threat actor's device.
Both apps were found to have attributions to the BadBazaar malware family. Thousands of users have already downloaded these fake apps.
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Google Play Removed These Fake Apps Already
According to Ars Technica, Google has already removed these two apps from the Play Store, which means that users could avoid getting victimized by these applications for now.
However, this is not the same for users with these apps still downloaded and installed on their devices.
Rampant Fake Apps That Steal Your Data
Android is one of the most free platforms for all apps and experiences. Thus, it is rampant to see fake apps using this application from every corner of the internet whose only goal is to steal from their victims.
Initially, this has been a massive concern for fake crypto apps flooding the Google Play Store, as logging in one's credentials here would give threat actors a chance to steal their holdings.
However, these hackers did not stop there. As people grew wary of these nefarious figures online, they have tried to strengthen their accounts using two-factor authentication services.
Still, these threat actors found a way to turn this to their advantage in launching illicit 2FA authenticators, with one seeing as many as 10,000 downloads from Play.
The app was known to install a banking fraud trojan that looks for financial data and other personal information on the infected device.
The fame of ChatGPT was also taken advantage of by these threat actors, with the Play Store seeing many dupes that mimic what the AI chatbot has to offer but, in reality, is infecting devices with malware or stealing information.
Google Play has taken its stand against the fake apps spreading on its platform, with its most recent action removing the fake apps mimicking Signal Messenger and Telegram that creep in on the users' sensitive information.
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