Beware! THESE fake cryptocurrency apps on the Google Play Store can steal your money

Security researchers working at the Lookout Threat Lab revealed that there are around 170 Android apps, of which 25 fake apps are available on the Google Play Store, that are scamming people who plan to earn some money from crypto mining.

If we look at the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency values in the last few weeks, it has been constantly falling down and taking advantage of the current situation, a lot of people are trying to invest money so that the valuation increases soon.  

#BuyTheDip and #HODL have been trending for quite some time now and if you are looking to take advice on investments from these Twitter trends, then you are on the wrong track.

Security researchers working at the Lookout Threat Lab revealed that there are around 170 Android apps,  of which 25 fake apps are available on the Google Play Store, which is scamming people who plan to earn some money from crypto mining. 

Google Play Store has been a den of fake apps as earlier there were several cases reported of prevailing of these illegal apps. The primary reason behind the existence of these apps is that they somehow evade each and every detection and check and they don’t do anything that would trigger automated policy compliance checks.

After receiving several complaints, Google has taken action on these fake apps but that is just a minuscule number as these fake cryptocurrency apps were charging a fee from users in return for asking for computing power from your smartphone, to be able to mine crypto coins. 

These apps claimed to be mining coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. They charge between $12.99 to $259.99 and you will be asked to pay either via Google Play’s saved payment mechanisms or even crypto coins including Bitcoin, directly to the developer’s crypto wallet. 

People who signed up for these crypto-mining apps saw a lot of transactions that were basically fake and these scamming apps. These scamming apps came up with a policy in place which was regarding a minimum balance from mined coins before users could withdraw the earnings to their accounts. 

The security researchers further revealed that users who are writing the reviews of say the Play Store for some of these dodgy apps hint towards the fact that users still weren’t allowed to withdraw even if they met the predefined minimum threshold.

Users were asked to shell out more money in terms of subscription plans and lure them with promises of further reducing this minimum balance requirement as well as better rewards.

The Lookout Threat Lab found out that these fake apps have scammed over 93,000 people and stole at least $350,000 with users paying subscription fees and buying upgrades in-app.

“While CloudScam and BitScam apps have now been removed from Google Play, there are dozens more still being circulated in third-party app stores. In total, the operators generated at least $350,000. They stole $300,000 from selling the fake apps and an additional $50,000 in cryptocurrencies from victims paying for fake upgrades and services,” say the researchers.

The company warned users to research the developer who is interested in signing up for a crypto mining app. It is also important to know the developer before paying up, read other users’ reviews and also go through the terms and conditions. “Most of the scam apps either have fake information or don’t have any terms available,” they say.