Fake antivirus hits mobile app stores

The lab recently found two such programmes imitating the company’s products in two different official app stores for mobile devices, an official of the company said.Roman Unuchek, the company’s Senior Malware Analyst said the first fake app was discovered in Windows Phone Store.  “This in itself was unusual because scammers tend to target users of […]

The lab recently found two such programmes imitating the company’s products in two different official app stores for mobile devices, an official of the company said.
Roman Unuchek, the company’s Senior Malware Analyst said the first fake app was discovered in Windows Phone Store.  “This in itself was unusual because scammers tend to target users of Android – via Google Play – due to the platform’s popularity. The app in question went by the name of Kaspersky Mobile. The fact that there is no such programme in Kaspersky Lab’s product line suggests the fraudsters didn’t expect anyone to notice the discrepancy. Another interesting feature of this particular app was the fact that users had to pay for it. This meant its creators immediately started making money without having to devise additional scams such as demanding payments to remove “malware” that had supposedly been detected on users’ computers”, he said.
He said the second fake app imitating the Kaspersky Lab brand was for sale on Google Play and was called Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2014.
Again, he said, there is no Kaspersky Lab product for mobile devices by that name.
“The screenshot used on the page of the fake app was simply copied from the official Kaspersky Internet Security for Android page. Unlike the app for sale in Windows Phone Store, the creators of this fake app didn’t even bother to add a simulation of a scanner.