Developer Kosta Eleftheriou recently revealed an unusual fraud scheme that takes place on the App Store. These are applications of transmission of videos posing as legitimate applications to fool millions of Apple users.
This is the typical scam that we have seen time and again in the Android universe and to which the Apple app store seemed to be immune. However, it is now proven that Americana’s application verification system has its flaws as well.
More than two million users have already fallen for this scheme.
According to the data revealed by Kosta Eleftheriou, the malicious applications in question already total more than two million installations. They earn an average of $ 16,000 a day, which translates into a total profit of around $ 6 million a year.
According to data revealed by The Sun, these apps promise to include trailers for upcoming movies. Also, some are disguised as filters that you can apply to your photos.
As is customary in these schemes, applications subscribe users to services cousin without your consent. The result is monthly bills for non-existent services, thus generating the aforementioned utility.
They do this by tricking users into entering codes into apps or sharing them to unlock exclusive features. A method that also serves to promote these malicious applications.
To further broaden their spectrum of influence, various digital influencers have been used. They promoted these malicious apps to their millions of followers, leading them to believe in the legitimacy of their promises.
This scheme tarnishes Apple’s image
Apple’s image is indisputably damaged by the disclosure of this fraudulent scheme. First, due to the apparent inefficiency of its system to evaluate candidate applications to enter the App Store.
By the way, this news further weakens this screening system that has already been criticized internally by the director of Apple’s anti-fraud service. Eric Friedman even called this system “more like the pretty lady who greets you at the Hawaiian airport than the drug sniffing dog.”
Second, we have the usual 15% or 30% fees that Apple charges on all transactions made in its app store. In other words, Apple also profited millions from the revenue generated by this fraudulent scheme.
Unfortunately, this is not the first case of fraud discovered in the App Store universe. At the beginning of 2021, Kosta Eleftheriou himself denounced the StringVPN application as a fraudulent service that will have generated income of one million dollars per month.
Given these findings, it is imperative to inform readers about reading the reviews before installing a new app on their iPhone. As Kosta Eleftheriou defends, this reading would be enough to prevent more users from falling for this scam.