Facebook’s parent company Meta has warned media giants Apple and Google about more than 400 apps designed to steal personal data from people’s social media accounts. People are told to be wary of certain photo editing apps, horoscopes, fitness tracking apps, among many others. In a statement released Friday night, Meta said its investigation found that hundreds of iOS and Android apps have been made to compromise Facebook logins. user details. Apple and Google have removed the malware apps from their respective app stores since Meta reported them.
“We’re encouraging people to be cautious when downloading a new app that asks for social media credentials and provide practical steps to help people stay safe,” Meta’s David Agranovish and Ryan Victory wrote in a statement.
The announcement by Meta, formerly known as Facebook, comes just one week later.
Meta has warned that once a hacker has someone’s Facebook login details, they could have full access to their account, including sending messages to their friends and receiving their private information.
What kind of apps should you be looking for?
Meta said malware apps often have “tick signals” that should set off alarm bells for users.
Here are just a few of the apps Meta has detected that you should be wary of:
- Photo editing apps that invite users to ‘turn into cartoons’
- Virtual private networks that advertise to increase browsing speed or access blocked websites
- Phone utility services such as apps to light up your smartphone’s existing flashlight
- Games that promote high resolution graphics
- Horoscope or fitness tracking apps
- Commercial or ad management apps that claim to offer features not yet found in official apps on other technology platforms.
What else can you do?
Meta also advises users looking for apps that require social media credentials to access the app, to check negative reviews of an app before downloading it, and to evaluate whether the app has delivered on the features it promised to the application store
Have you been affected?
If a user has realized that they have been affected by an app, Meta recommends that they delete the app and reset their password. He also recommends never reusing a password across multiple websites. He also recommends implementing two-factor authentication, as well as turning on notifications to let you know if someone has accessed your account. You can find the list of .