Unfortunately, as noted a couple of weeks ago, this initiative has actually done very little so far. With the launch of Android Oreo, Google put ‘Play Protect' in place, relying on machine learning to squash these apps. The major issue here is that there are still loop holes present in the Google Play Store system, allowing dodgy app makers to take advantage of unsuspecting Android users. With more than a million downloads, it is safe to assume that the app generated a decent amount of cash before being shut down by Google. However, the developer was using in-app advertisements to generate revenue. The app itself doesn't appear to have contained any viruses, as we have seen in the past with fake apps being used to power DDOS attacks. The app was even displayed as being published by ‘WhatsApp Inc', adding further legitimacy to the fake listing.Īfter some sleuthing, some folks over on Reddit noticed that the developer was using a URL encoding trick to force the listing to show up under the WhatsApp Inc name. Somehow, the fake app had managed to score a 4.2/5 star rating with over 6000 reviews. The app's full name was ‘Update WhatsApp Messenger', with the store page using all of the assets found on the official WhatsApp page. This point was once again proven over the weekend, as it was discovered that more than one million people had downloaded a fake version of WhatsApp. Dodgy app developers are still able to get fake or malware ridden apps on to the store front, with some even able to take advantage of the review system in order to appear legitimate to unsuspecting downloaders. Security on the Google Play store has been an issue for years.
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