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Security Cellphones Microsoft Software

Windows Phone Store Increasingly Targeted With Fake Mobile Apps 90

Posted by Soulskill from the low-hanging-fruit dept.
An anonymous reader writes: A post by security company Avast says not only are a large amount of fake apps available from the third-party marketplace of the Windows Phone Store, but they also remain available for quite a while despite negative comments and other flags from end-users. Avast speculates that improved security and auditing procedures at rival stores such as Google Play account for the increasing attention that fake app-publishers are giving to the Windows phone app market.
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Windows Phone Store Increasingly Targeted With Fake Mobile Apps More

Windows Phone Store Increasingly Targeted With Fake Mobile Apps

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  • Haven't Windows Phone users learned by now? (Score:3)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Tuesday October 06, 2015 @11:35PM (#50676733)

    All the good apps are on iOS and Android.
    They should be suspicious of any well-known app being in their store.

    • Had they learned, they would not have a Windows Phone.

      I mean, who has a Windows phone these days? The app store is missing many basic apps and those that exist frequently don't work as well as the Android or IOS version of the app.

      I don't think that I have seen a Windows phone except at the AT&T store.

      • This is also why the malware writers are moving to the Windows Phone store. Anyone naïve enough to buy a Windows Phone is also a prime target for a scam.

      • I have a windows phone.

        It's worked quite well for me and been about 80 dollars a month cheaper plus it has unlimited music bandwidth.

        It cost me $120 to buy - out right -.

        I was on Iphone's first. But AT&T got way too pricy.

        Then i was on Android. But Sprint got way too pricy.

        Anyway, currently have soundforge, pandora, waze, my bank app, a finance app to track my stocks, etc.

        Admittedly, one reason i went to windows was fewer virii at the time. So if virus intrusion has become a problem, then that's one

  • Comment Subject (Score:4, Funny)

    by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @12:23AM (#50676879)

    Maybe they found it easier to personally email both Windows Phone users to warn them of the risks.

    • I'm one of them and I don't mind. It gives me perspective for all the pain Mac users continue to go through, watching the platform they like struggle along with low adoption numbers. At least I'm not a Linux fan I guess.

      • Mac users haven't had a problem with software support outside of games for almost 10 years.

        • Depends on the software. There are lots and lots of things that are still windows only.

          • Depends on the software. There are lots and lots of things that are still windows only.

            True; but Windows-Only software is getting niche-ier and nich-ier every single year.

            And since it is trivial through VMWare and Parallels to seamlessly run Windows in a way that integrates the Windows Apps onto the OS X Desktop almost as if they really were OS X Applications, and alongside of Linux Apps as well, if desired/required, Macs still make the most versatile computers, and have for several years.

  • I'm not sure if this is legal or not, but if they made an iOS and Android emulator so you could run both iOS and Android apps on the Windows phones, some people might get a Windows Phone then who'd otherwise be getting one or the other because they figure they get all types of compatibility.

    Then I'd make backwards compatibility to Windows Vista where all windows versions could run: Windows Phone apps, iOS apps, and Android apps. It is very very important to do this similar to a sandbox where the apps c

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tlambert ( 566799 )

      I'm not sure if this is legal or not, but if they made an iOS and Android emulator so you could run both iOS and Android apps on the Windows phones, some people might get a Windows Phone then who'd otherwise be getting one or the other because they figure they get all types of compatibility.

      This would be the third worst tactical blunder of all time. The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line"!

      The correct thing to do is build Windows emulators for iOS and Android, rather than the other way around.

      This will cause developers to target their development for Windows, rather than targeting iOS or Android. This get Microsoft native apps, and at the same time, detracts f

      • I think either yours or my idea or even both would be a good move to add more Windows Phone users. The nice thing about your idea is that it requires less hoop jumping to keep things up to date as Apple/Android update. And even for a big corporation, constant reverse engineering and updating gets old and costly.

        • I think either yours or my idea or even both would be a good move to add more Windows Phone users.

          Realize that I don't necessarily believe that more Windows phones are automatically a social good; I just believe that if that were Microsoft's goal, the way to achieve it would be for Microsoft to encourages developers to target them as a platform. This would incidentally benefit Microsoft by having developers target their code to Microsoft's IDE, rather than X Code or Eclipse.

          Again, this is only about Microsoft's best interests in regard to establishing market share, and not about what I believe is neces

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by slaker ( 53818 )

        OK, but what's the killer application that Android or iOS users that Windows Mobile has to get them to put the emulator/run-time on their devices in the first place? What makes anyone think that Apple would allow such an application to exist in its app store?

    • Re:If I was Microsoft, here's what I'd do. (Score:4, Informative)

      by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @02:59AM (#50677369)

      if they made an iOS and Android emulator so you could run both iOS and Android apps on the Windows phones

      They are. Windows Bridge for iOS/Android - allows one to port applications to Windows Phone using Visual Studio.

      • The problem is every time we've seen this happen, it's always backfired on whoever is trying it.

        For example, when OS/2 added Win32 support, nobody wrote anything for OS/2 anymore. Why? Because it was easier to just write the Win32 program and just ignore OS/2.

        Three years ago Google did the smart thing and pulled the reverse against Apple: They wrote an application framework that made it easy to port Android apps to iOS.

        Besides, their "bridges" don't solve the number one problem with porting apps: Ongoing su

    • The thing you talk about - Android and iOS apps on Windows phones - already exists (in preview form, at least). Originally called "Project Astoria", Microsoft seems to have decided to call it Windows Bridges [windows.com], and is only for Windows 10 Mobile (not out yet, but the previews have been publicly available for months). Android and iOS apps can be recompiled for Windows with minimal effort. There's also a feature of Project Astoria that lets you run Android APKs directly, unmodified, on W10M... but that one seems

  • We have to redefine "malicious" (Score:5, Informative)

    by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @01:54AM (#50677151) Homepage

    From the post on Avast's blog, the ones who started this whole thing [avast.com], the scam is evidently to put out software with the same name as 50 different major companies, wait for people to mistakenly download, and pay $1.99 for the app. That's not much of a major criminal scheme, it's pretty pathetic and it is well within the powers of a major corporation like Microsoft to shut this down.

    The really eye-opening part is when one of the "malicious" apps is defined as the following:

    "Claiming to âoeprotect your phone from malware and theftâ, this malicious app runs in the background of victimsâ(TM) devices once downloaded and collects their data and location."

    This is what Windows 10 does by design. I think we need to redefine what "malicious" means. In both softwares you clicked "I agree" to the T&C before continuing.

    • "Claiming to âoeprotect your phone from malware and theftâ, this malicious app runs in the background of victimsâ(TM) devices once downloaded and collects their data and location."

      If I was that crapware maker, I would feel quite comfortable marketing my app as a "Windows 10 security doubler". After all, if Windows 10 logs your data and sends it to a site on the internet, it must be doubly secure to send the data to a second site.

    • Anyone that installs something called 'Malicious App' deserves what they get ;-)

  • Crap, better take down Mind Croft by Macrosoft before I get caught!

  • The article is interesting but fails to ask the most important question: what is Microsoft doing about this? It feels like they're not doing anything. Just another sign of the impending death of Windows Phone.
  • We'll set up our own app store. It takes care of itself. Nearly no staff required. It's all profit!

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