The malicious applications disguised themselves as legitimate applications like image editors, VPNs, games, flashlight apps, and asked users to sign in using Facebook or any other login from a different platform.
Meta has discovered more than 400 mobile applications that have been created to trick users into giving away their login details, which includes the two-factor code for authenticating.
The team’s malware-detection experts identified the malware-infected Android as well as iOS apps in the past year as they investigated cyber-attacks that are threatening Facebook. Meta claims it’s difficult to know how many people might have downloaded the apps or handed over their login details in the process, but Meta intends to alert those who are suspected of being users.
“So we’re being overcautious here. We’ll notify one million people who may be exposed to these apps,” David Agranovich, director of threat disruption at Meta at an interview with journalists. The apps targeted users in a symbiosis manner.
The malware masqueraded as legitimate software like photo editors, VPNs games, or flashlight applications. But, they also insist that users login for Facebook or another platform.
“Many of the apps provided little to no functionality before you logged in,” Agranovich declared. “Most provided no functionality even after you logged in.” However, the login prompt can be able to steal the username, password, or two-factor authentication codes that were entered. Hackers can then utilize the access stolen to further spread frauds.
The malware also managed to get around Google Play Store and Apple App Store security measures to be recognized. According to Meta’s analysis, 42.6% percent of malicious apps masqueraded as photo editors. 11.7 percent claimed as VPNs. In addition, the affected apps for iOS were focused on providing businesses-focused utilities, with names like “Business Manager Pages” and “Ad Optimization Meta.”
“Cybercriminals know how popular these types of apps are, and they’ll use similar themes to trick people to steal their accounts and information” Agranovich said.
Google has informed PCMag: “All of the apps identified in the report are no longer available on Google Play. Users are also protected by Google Play Protect, which blocks these apps on Android.” Google adds it is the case that the bulk of harmful apps listed in Meta’s report had already been discovered and removed out of Google Play by the company earlier in the year.
Apple declares that all of its 45 malicious iOS apps were taken off the app store. Apple also says Apple has zero tolerance for fraudulent and malicious activity in the App Store.
The Meta report(Opens within a brand new tab) includes a full list of app affected, which includes the majority of them comprise Android apps.
To safeguard yourself, Meta encourages users to read reviews about the app before they download it. Reviews that are negative, especially they might indicate if the app is fraudulent or not. It’s recommended to avoid apps that insist that users to sign up with an authentic Facebook, Google, or Apple account to access all functions.
Agranovich said: “Does this request to sign in using Facebook seem reasonable? If a flashlight app asks you to log in using Facebook before it offers any flashlight functions, that’s likely to be something to be wary of.”
To identify which users might be at risk Agranovich stated that Meta will examine the evidence to show that their account has had access to a certain manner.
