Are you an Android user who loves fancy keyboards? This app will steal all of your money – Uninstall now!
As per the researchers at mobile technology firm Upstream, a very known keyboard app called the ai.type keyboard can empty its user of their hard earned money.
Google Play Store has been facing this challenge of malicious apps very frequently and for the same reason Google has hired 3 security firms to scan the Play Store apps. However, this has come off late, as the open-source platform has been failed to control malware attacks allowing a bunch of harmful apps to find a way onto users’ android smartphones. Google has been removing such apps regularly but new one keep popping up. The latest entry to the list is a keyboard app ai.type keyboard that can steal all your money!
This app has been found doing unauthorised transactions in the background by subscribing to premium third-party services without notifying the user and thereby duping people of their money. The Upstream team claim to have identified 14 million such requests and have blocked with their Secure-D platform.
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Google had earlier removed the app from its Play Store in June 2019, but the app makes a way to get into user smartphones, either through third-party app on Android or websites. So far, it has been installed on millions of devices.
Once blocked by Google the app became more active as claimed by the Upstream team. There has been a massive spike in requests for malicious transactions since then. The app has access to user data which is given away as clicks on website and purchase details to advertising networks.
“Innocent users are paying for these hidden, unauthorised purchases and related data consumption whose source is buried in the app,” said Dimitris Maniatis, head of Secure-D at Upstream.
If, anyhow you have installed this app then ensure to delete it right away. Also try and delete its source file with .apk extension if lying in your smartphone so as to avoid reinstall by mistake.