Fake WhatsApp on Google Play Store: Malicious developers are known to use popular apps to spread malware. Google's official Play Store has proven to be a prime place for the spread of these malicious apps.
Yesterday, some users spotted a fake version of the most popular messaging app WhatsApp for Android on the official Google Play Store. This version has reportedly been downloaded by more than a million users.
It was called Update WhatsApp Messenger, and was uploaded by an app developer who used the real WhatsApp service, “WhatsApp Inc.”, as the name
Yes, he managed to use a trick to use the same developer title that the real WhatsApp app uses on Google Play.
How did he do this? Very simply with a Unicode character.
The malicious programmer added a Unicode character after the name of WhatsApp Inc., which was invisible to humans. However, the computer could “see” what we see as WhatsApp Inc., as the following characters: WhatsAπρ + Inc%C2%A0.
This hidden character at the end of WhatsApp Inc. fooled several Google Play Store users.
According to Redditors, who discovered this fake app on Friday, the app was not a chat app, but rather pushed ads to its victims and encouraged them to download other apps.
Google of course removed the fake app almost immediately from the official Play Store, but this incident once again marked the company's failure to detect a scam on its app platform, even after a million downloads.
Conclusion:
Don't believe announcements like the one above, because Google may be looking for ways to protect itself, but millions of others are looking for ways to bypass any security. You should be very careful about downloading apps not only from third-party stores, but also from the official Google Play Store.
