Apple and Google withdrew up to 20 apps from their application stores after safety researchers found that applications carry harmful data stealing programs for about a year.
Security researchers in Kaspersky He said harmful programs,,, Which was called Sparkcat, has been active since March 2024. Initially, the researchers found the malicious framework within the food delivery application used in the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, but they later found harmful programs on 19 other than relevant applications, which they say it is It has been cumulated more than 242,000 times through the Google’s Play Store.
Using the code designed to capture the visual text on the user’s display – known as the recognition of visual letters (OCR) – the researchers found that harmful programs have surveyed photo galleries on the victim’s devices for the main words to find the recovery phrases for the coded currency portfolios across different languages, including the language English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
By using harmful programs to capture the victim’s recovery expressions, attackers can completely control the victim’s portfolio and steal their money.
The researchers said that malware can also allow personal information extract from screenshots, such as messages and passwords.
When receiving the report from the researchers, Apple pulled the applications at risk from the application store last week, followed by Google.
“All applications from Google Play have been removed, and developers have been banned,” Google spokesman Ed Fernandez told Techcrunch.
Google spokesman also confirmed that Android users were protected from well -known versions of these malware through the integrated Google Play.
Apple did not respond to suspension requests.
Rosemarie Gonzales Techcrunch spokeswoman Kaspersky said that although the reported applications were withdrawn from official application stores, remote measurements for the company indicate that harmful programs were also available from other websites and informal application stores.