An iPhone user has lost over $600,000 after a scamming cryptocurrency app was cleared by Apple¡¯s stringent App Store policies.?
Philippe Christodoulou wanted to check the value of his 17.1 bitcoins, and instead came to a disastrous realization of having to deal with losing his life savings.?
As reported by The Washington Post, to access the wallet, he decided to download the Trezor app (a company that¡¯s known for its hardware wallets) on the iOS App Store. The app looked just like the original with the green background and the padlock logo, so without hesitating, he downloaded the app.However, later he found out that would be one of the worst mistakes of his life.?
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The app was fake and it was designed to look legit and fool innocent people into entering their confidential details and within no time, Christodoulou found out that his bitcoins were stolen from him. According to the report, he had hoped his bitcoins would have helped in saving his dry-cleaning business which was affected by the pandemic.?
Apple has had a reputation for being the most secure when it comes to its app on its App Store, at least when compared to Google¡¯s Play Store. Apps on the App Store are known to go through a stringent process of verifications before they go live on the store.?
Apple claims that at the time of signing up, the app posed to be a cryptography app used to encrypt iPhone files and passwords and at the time the app developer had highlighted that the app has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. But after the app got submitted, it soon turned into a crypto wallet and slipped right under Apple¡¯s radar.?
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Oddly enough, Trezor¡¯s App is only available on Android and the original report highlights that the company had notified Apple and Google about fake apps for a few years now. The fake Trezor app is no longer available on the App Store.
Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz has said in a statement to Washington Post, ¡°User trust is at the foundation of why we created the ?App Store?, and we have only deepened that commitment in the years since.¡±?
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He added, ¡°Study after study has shown that the ?App Store? is the most secure app marketplace in the world, and we are constantly at work to maintain that standard and to further strengthen the ?App Store?'s protections.?In the limited instances when criminals defraud our users, we take swift action against these actors as well as to prevent similar violations in the future.¡±?
It is important to note that Apple has not revealed how often scam apps are found in the store. However, Apple has admitted to removing 6,500 apps last year due to ¡®hidden or undocumented features.?