25 bogus Google Play store apps promised to mine cryptocurrency for a fee, scamming wannabe investors
Scammers are pushing fake cryptomining apps in order to make a buck off of victims interested in virtual currency. Security researchers at Lookout identified more than 170 apps that advertise themselves as providing cryptocurrency-mining services on the cloud for a fee. Unlike other popular cryptocurrency scams on mobile, the criminals aren’t seeking to empty a user’s wallet or download malicious software. Instead, the apps simply charge users for a service that doesn’t exist. Similar scams have existed in desktop form for a while, but this is the first time researchers have noticed apps designed to conduct such a fraud. “The apps themselves are really essentially empty shells with what look like purchasing functionalities,” said Christoph Hebeisen, director of security intelligence research at Lookout. “There is no way to tell if there is actually mining going on in the background or not because that happens on the cloud side, that doesn’t […]
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