Beware of fake financial apps. Links to them are spread by social networks

May 17, 2021 Bary Howards

Online financial transactions are, on the one hand, one of the best achievements in the online world, but at the same time fertile ground for various fraudsters. The situation has multiplied by a boom in applications that allow not only the normal transfer of money between two people’s accounts, but also, for example, trading on the stock exchange or the mining and management of cryptocurrencies. One dark iPhone owner, for example, was recently convinced of the dark side of transactions, to whom a fake Bitcoin application embezzled property. Insidious mobile tools that pretend to be different, proven, there are a lot of things. Sophos recently unveiled 167 fake stock and cryptocurrency financial applications for Android and iOS.

Attackers target users through dating sites and social networks. They entice victims to install applications that pretend to be popular brands in order to steal money. Of course from places outside the Play Store or App Store. People think they have installed it application for financial trading, banking or cryptocurrencies from a known and trusted organization. And then they are deceived and disappointed. The authors of these applications use ingenious social engineering and relatively clever persuasive methods in their unfair work. Fraudulent financial instruments are there equipped with an abused logo and have a similar design. This makes it difficult to detect them. When the user is not careful for a while, the application is installed and looks like the original.

The aforementioned 167 fake financial applications that Sophos has tracked down are posing as Barclays, Gemini, Bitwala, Kraken, Binance, BitcoinHK, Bittrex, BitFlyer or TDBank. You may not know many of them at all, but it is possible that attackers will not try in a similar way over time. mimic the applications you use. For example, those from Czech banks or normally operating in the Czech Republic. Be sure to be careful and think critically over any operation involving money transfers or the handling of cryptocurrencies in the news or on the networks. And in general, be very careful about installing apps outside of the Play Store, App Store, or other official and verified sources.