Fake Mobile Apps. How to Protect Yourself?

You’ve probably heard about those fake banking mobile apps. They’re ones which pretend to be from some legit bank but actually perform quite deceptive actions. They actually belong to the banking trojan malicious apps family. But it’s not enough to talk only about these. There are not only fake banking apps but a whole range of ones that try to fake different stuff. We will walk you through them so you would know what they are, and how they work. You will learn the most common signs of malicious or fake apps presence. Additionally, you will see what are the most common kinds of such apps, and do they only affect Android or iOS as well. Finally, we’ll answer the most important question – how to stay away from them?

Short statistic on mobile apps usage

Before we start with the main questions I want you to know the following interesting statistics on this topic. Currently, in the world there are almost 6.3 bln smartphone users¹ and that’s nearly half of the total population on Earth. With such growth, the downloads of mobile apps are steadily growing too. For the period from 2016 to 2020 the number of downloads of mobile applications for the quarter increased by more than 1.5 times – from 20 billion to 36 billion. In total, over 204 billion downloads were made in 2020. The number of mobile applications in stores is growing as well. According to statistics, about 100,000 new apps for Google Play and 30,000 apps for the App Store appear every month.

Naturally, in places where information technologies are used so massively you can meet numerous cyber fraudsters. Obviously, there will be more of them than elsewhere. Their main purpose is information stored on phones, which can be both personal (photos, copies of documents, bank card data) or work-related. Sometimes leakage of certain types of such information can be extremely unpleasant for their owner. For a long time attackers used social engineering and other similar techniques to steal information. They devised to some degree sophisticated kinds of schemes. But nowadays everything is much more simple: all you need is for the user to download a fake application on their device that will pretend to be real. It can even be with real functions but it will also silently perform certain malicious functions.

However, such programs are also engaged not only in data theft, but also in cryptocurrency mining, advertising fraud, etc.
Of course, Google Play and the Apple Store do not look indifferently at cybercriminals creating apps with illicit purposes. They are actively fighting such programs: apps are reviewed before publication, and also periodically later. But the reality shows even this is not enough to completely screen out fraudulent applications.

What are common signs of malicious or fake mobile apps presence?

It’s never too late to check everything once again. Even if you are sure you don’t have any mobile malware on your device. Maybe that quick battery drainage comes directly from some kind of malware hiding in your phone. Of course, there may be plenty of reasons for that fast discharge, but malware activity may be one of the reasons. So here are some warning signs you should pay attention to in case they appear. It should be mentioned that the signs are common both for iOS and Android.

Long-term effects of malware presence

If that thing happens for a long time, you will likely detect an irreversible effect – wear. In particular, your battery is in danger. Since the charge in the electrolyte, as well as its conductivity, depends on the temperature, the long-time overheating may lead to a sharp decrease in the peak battery capacity. In very rare cases it may even lead to battery explosions.

Visual symptoms