Mobile app drained users

[Z-tight]

Wow I never thought one could get scammed through an app from plsy store this is the first time I'm hearing of such

Really? Then you should be glad you are on this forum and your have learnt that Google play store houses fake and phishing applications that can steal all your money. Even Apple store is not safe to download things relating to wallet and other related things.

So then what should we do in order to avoid being victims of these schemes hoe do we know the app is legit is there a way to know

Just go ahead and download the wallet from the official website, don't download from playstore; that's how you stay safe.

[Cantsay]

So then what should we do in order to avoid being victims of these schemes hoe do we know the app is legit is there a way to know

Make it an habit to always download apps from the official website site, no matter how easy it may seems downloading from playstore or App Store don’t do it because anyone can go there pay the required $25 (for playstore) and install an app that looks similar to the original one and then use it to phish people.

[Bobcrypto]

This is very alarming, People trust Google play to protect them from these malicious applications and this happen, This is a big warning sign to not trust Google Play and do your research elsewhere on indepemdent trustworthy platforms.
Reviews can be fake, and this case its a planned and orchestrated review, so it will gain a good ranking in the search engine.
There's a possibility of a repeat of this scenario.

In my opinion, Google may be exonerated from all these malicious registered Apps on it's store. I think that some of these malicious Apps may not have given their intent or details purposes to the use of Google services.
Crypto users should be cautious and very vigilant because scammers are upgrading their tactics everyday, and any crypto users relying on certain reviews which could be fake, unfortunately, they are researching about these Apps and vital questions before downloading or using these apps. This  one of issues facing the crypto community which must be look into.

[Faisal2202]

10k downloads for others seems to enough to trust this application, but the thing is that this downloads could come from their inner groups, to make it looks like there are a lot of people who have downloaded it already. And so when the victims saw this, they didn't doubt.

That's why I said 10k downloads are too low to trust an app I don't trust an app until it has around 200k to 500k downloads because this is a normal range for us to consider. 10k is too low for me to trust an app and we must see the reviews and don't underestimate the one or two negative reviews by seeing more positive views in compared to them. Plus, never trust any app listed on the Play store as an authentic one.

Yeah, not the first time, there have been multiple reports already, but the thing is that this scammers are also evolving that's why for a normal people, everything looks normal and real. But for those who have been in the crypto market, we should always have that element of "something is not right", and we should research more and verify before downloading any on our pc or laptop.

You are right we have that element and we research more and don't connect the wallet until we are so sure and I also join airdrops and when I am not sure about the app, I create a spare wallet especially for that and I manage it by keeping its record on some spreadsheet or on paper. Mean when we create more wallets it becomes a little hard to manage them.

[joniboini]

That's why I said 10k downloads are too low to trust an app I don't trust an app until it has around 200k to 500k downloads because this is a normal range for us to consider. 10k is too low for me to trust an app and we must see the reviews and don't underestimate the one or two negative reviews by seeing more positive views in compared to them.

I wonder how this download gets counted. From what I recall, Google counted unique account/device IDs for each download. So 10k downloads mean 10k unique downloads, although scammers can easily fake this by running multiple instances of emulators or paying someone with peanuts to download their apps. That being said, 200k is a high number. Some legit apps that I know of never reached that number as far as I can tell, but that probably happened because the dev put a direct download link on their website/GitHub. As for 500k, probably only games can reach that number easily within a month or so. CMIIW.

[Faisal2202]

I wonder how this download gets counted. From what I recall, Google counted unique account/device IDs for each download. So 10k downloads mean 10k unique downloads, although scammers can easily fake this by running multiple instances of emulators or paying someone with peanuts to download their apps. That being said, 200k is a high number. Some legit apps that I know of never reached that number as far as I can tell, but that probably happened because the dev put a direct download link on their website/GitHub. As for 500k, probably only games can reach that number easily within a month or so. CMIIW.

Scammers have ways to count their downloads unique, I am not aware of the full method, but they can hire someone or some devices or can run ads to get fake downloads. There are many people providing such services to give you fake downloads, and each of them get's counted. And you are right a crypto app might not get 200k to 500k quickly, but games can.

But I don't trust any new crypto apps that easily and advise everyone to do the same because they are new, and don't value their customers now. At least we don't know from their any action if they care about their users or not. So, just to remain safe, don't connect your main accounts with them even if you download them.

[electronicash]

An app in Google Play disguised under the name of Walletconnect was able to steal over $70,000 from 150 users over only a couple of months the app allows people to connect their wallets into dapps and the fake app was downloaded for about 10,000 times but not everyone used the service because of suspicion.

The company says that this is the first time that a mobile app is exclusively used to steal from mobile users this is alarming because it was on google play and not everyone could have seen that it was fake and thought of it as legitimate since it is on the famous Google Play.

People connecting their wallets to an application that has only 10k downloads? That's their own mistake, I mean, who just connects their wallet full of money to any site even for a few bucks (which most likely they are also not giving) Nowadays, the airdrop hunt is on top, and everyone is trying to participate from their main wallets that have some past transactions made already so they could get more reward or their selection becomes guaranteed.

10k downloads for others seems to enough to trust this application, but the thing is that this downloads could come from their inner groups, to make it looks like there are a lot of people who have downloaded it already. And so when the victims saw this, they didn't doubt.

And this is not the first time a fraudulent application has been listed on Google Play if you will Google you will find a lot of stories of how people get scammed because they download apps on Google Play blindly which is also wrong.

Yeah, not the first time, there have been multiple reports already, but the thing is that this scammers are also evolving that's why for a normal people, everything looks normal and real. But for those who have been in the crypto market, we should always have that element of "something is not right", and we should research more and verify before downloading any on our pc or laptop.

they are often suing people with whatever they can come up and make money. if one person just slip accidentally on someone else backyard, i think they could even file a personal injury against the owner of the backyard.

in hundreds of victims just manged to put them all in one room and agree to sue googpleplay, they could make the company liable. i think they are liable, it just however need a lot off funds to sue a large company.

[Faisal2202]

they are often suing people with whatever they can come up and make money. if one person just slip accidentally on someone else backyard, i think they could even file a personal injury against the owner of the backyard.

in hundreds of victims just manged to put them all in one room and agree to sue googpleplay, they could make the company liable. i think they are liable, it just however need a lot off funds to sue a large company.

I did not know Google Play was suing people to make money. Can you provide the source so I can learn more about it? I don't think we should plan to go after Google because it's the people who are so smart that they always come up with a loophole to abuse the policy and listing criteria and make themselves look like a good project and in the end, it's good for business for Google Play.

We must save ourselves from such apps and should not trust all apps listed on Google Play. I don't even trust apps listed on the Apple Store or any other store but double check everything and trust only those projects that are old and trusted by most of the people.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Now some will have to just realized the importance of being informed and why they need to take on some security measures, because we don't have to be scammed before knowing the right and proper step to take concerning the security of our crypto, scammers are now using many routes to attack on users and we must be able to have enough awareness regarding some of these tricks used by them before we turned their  prey.

[LogitechMouse]

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The company says that this is the first time that a mobile app is exclusively used to steal from mobile users this is alarming because it was on google play and not everyone could have seen that it was fake and thought of it as legitimate since it is on the famous Google Play.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-wallet-drainer-google-play-stole-70k-check-point

2 words. NOBODY'S PERFECT.

Even Facebook who is saying that they're doing everything to remove those scam ads on their platform still fails to do it. It's the same with Google. Heck they can't even differentiate which are phishing sites and which are not whenever we search on their search engine because they're times where the phishing site is on the top while the legit is at the 2nd or even 3rd on the list. Nothing surprising here TBH, and this is also the reason why I don't want to store my assets on a mobile wallet.

Always, always look at everything first before installing on our phone, downloading on our PC, or even depositing our assets. Always double or even triple check whether it's their legit mobile app, or legit website.

[Gposas]

It is obvious that fake apps can't be traced and ruled out from the popular Google Play Store that's one of the reason they have users agreement when downloading any application.
It's certain that even if you are looking for a particular application on Google Play Store you are likely to see more than 3 apps of that same nature, so it takes one to make proper research on the kind of app to download especially when it comes to one dealing with Crypto assets (wallet app).
The Google team may not be able to spot all fake apps, that's one major reason why using a link from the project main web to download it's wallet app is much recommended.