Fake Money Apps Garner Millions of Android Downloads

Security gurus have warned of quite a few new applications offered on Google Enjoy which purport to assistance the consumer create balanced habits in return for benefits, but in fact just bombard them with irritating advertisements.

Fortunate Behavior: overall health tracker, Fortunate Action-Going for walks Tracker and WalkingJoy have garnered in excess of 20 million downloads for what seems to be the similar developer.

However, they lie to their end users by professing that virtual benefits acquired for finishing plans, this sort of as distance walked for every working day, can be transformed into real income, in accordance to Dr Web. In actuality, the purpose of the apps appears to be to deliver earnings for the developer by tricking buyers into watching ads.

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“In order to initiate the process of withdrawing what they ‘earned,’ consumers experienced to accumulate a considerable variety of benefits. If they were being in a position to do this, the apps also demanded that they view dozens of promoting video clips,” the security vendor described.

“They have been then available many dozen far more advertisements to view in get to ‘speed up’ the withdrawal approach. With that, the applications did not confirm any of the payment-relevant data supplied by buyers, so the prospects of receiving any of the money promised from these apps are particularly compact.”

A recent update to the Lucky Move-Going for walks Tracker app acquired rid of a operate that invited users to transform benefits into on-line reward cards, it extra.

A different app, called “Wonder Time,” urges customers to gain digital points, which can be converted into money by installing, launching and applying other courses and video games. The application has been downloaded over 500,000 occasions.

“However, to withdraw what they ‘earned,’ customers had to accumulate millions of these benefits, when only a smaller amount of tokens was credited when responsibilities had been done,” warned Dr Web. “So even if consumers managed to accumulate the expected amount, they would spend much much more in time, effort and other sources than the financial gain they predicted to attain.”

All of the previously mentioned fraudulent apps look to have been withdrawn from Google Perform at the time of composing, except for Lucky Move-Walking Tracker.