As the trend of investing in digital currency has increased a lot, especially when people heard about the investment and free giveaways by some renowned personalities and influencers that build up the trust in this digital money. Therefore, many people are making their plans to buy cryptocurrency. But now many criminals have also jumped in as there are using different tactics so they can make people fool through their fake crypto-mining services. As the report says that many applications are intruding on the Official App Store of Google. Markedly, typical cryptocurrency programs include malware and usurping digital wallets as the scammers behind such applications are charging the investors for a mining service that does not even occur.
The security scientists at Lookout recently found that there are over 170 Android applications that provide the mining service of digital currency on the cloud in a swap for a fee. However, some of them even asked to pay a fee in the form of Bitcoin or Ethereum as well which is totally against the rules and policies of the Play Store but most of the applications are still following the terms and conditions. These security experts previously found the fraud schemes on the desktop format but now it has seen for the very first time that even applications with genuine functionalities have been specially designed to scam people investing in the digital currency. It is estimated that the scammers have targeted about 93 thousand users and that the bogus applications have earned a revenue of about $350,000 through fraud which is a huge amount.
Lookout identified that 2 Android device applications plunged into families of code which the researchers named Bit-Scam and Cloud-Scam. The researchers have said that from all the 170 fake applications about 25 applications have appeared on the Play Store of Google for downloading. However, the rest of the bogus apps can be downloaded through sideloading through a third-party cause. After the firm flagged the applications on the Google market, the giant tech company has confiscated them to safeguard other Android users. Those users downloading the crypto-mining applications should be very careful because they do not even know about developers who are credible and who are not.
A report by FTC has shown some of the facts about how criminals are taking full advantage of the recent popularity of digital currency by scamming investors. The report further published the data that the highest number of cryptocurrency scams were reported in the month of May and people collectively suffered a loss of about $80 million globally from October of the prior year to March of this year. Most complaints were generated on social media platforms where many scammers are making a fake profile of free digital currency giveaways. The report says that scammers have also tried to intrude in the Apple App Store and these applications are difficult to be pointed out as these are not doing anything malevolent that could remove them from the App Store or Play Store.
Read next: Here’s How Likely It is That Your Smart Device Might Get Hacked
The security scientists at Lookout recently found that there are over 170 Android applications that provide the mining service of digital currency on the cloud in a swap for a fee. However, some of them even asked to pay a fee in the form of Bitcoin or Ethereum as well which is totally against the rules and policies of the Play Store but most of the applications are still following the terms and conditions. These security experts previously found the fraud schemes on the desktop format but now it has seen for the very first time that even applications with genuine functionalities have been specially designed to scam people investing in the digital currency. It is estimated that the scammers have targeted about 93 thousand users and that the bogus applications have earned a revenue of about $350,000 through fraud which is a huge amount.
Lookout identified that 2 Android device applications plunged into families of code which the researchers named Bit-Scam and Cloud-Scam. The researchers have said that from all the 170 fake applications about 25 applications have appeared on the Play Store of Google for downloading. However, the rest of the bogus apps can be downloaded through sideloading through a third-party cause. After the firm flagged the applications on the Google market, the giant tech company has confiscated them to safeguard other Android users. Those users downloading the crypto-mining applications should be very careful because they do not even know about developers who are credible and who are not.
A report by FTC has shown some of the facts about how criminals are taking full advantage of the recent popularity of digital currency by scamming investors. The report further published the data that the highest number of cryptocurrency scams were reported in the month of May and people collectively suffered a loss of about $80 million globally from October of the prior year to March of this year. Most complaints were generated on social media platforms where many scammers are making a fake profile of free digital currency giveaways. The report says that scammers have also tried to intrude in the Apple App Store and these applications are difficult to be pointed out as these are not doing anything malevolent that could remove them from the App Store or Play Store.
Read next: Here’s How Likely It is That Your Smart Device Might Get Hacked
