A Bitcoin scam app designed to look like the original Trezor app has been accepted by Apple’s App Store review team, resulting in an iPhone user losing 17.1 Bitcoin, according to The Washington Post.
In February, a man wanted to test his Bitcoin and searched Apple’s “App Store” for “Trezor”, the company that makes the hardware device where he stored his cryptocurrencies. He saw an application with the Trezor logo and a green background, so he downloaded it and entered his credentials.
Unfortunately, this was a Bitcoin scam app that looked like a legitimate application to trick Bitcoin holders. The user lost almost all of his Bitcoin and is angry with Apple. “Apple must not get away with this,” he told The Washington Post.
In general, Apple reviews all applications before approving their entry into the App Store, so that iPhone users do not download fake applications. There are, however, some scam and copycat apps, such as Trezor, that can be so well designed to “slip”.
Apple reports that the Bitcoin scam app went through the “App Store” via “bait-and-switch”. It was called Trezor and used the Trezor logo and colors, but said it was a “cryptography” app that would encrypt iPhone files and store passwords. The developer of the fake application told Apple that “it is not related to cryptocurrency”. After the submission, the application was changed to a cryptocurrency wallet, something that Apple could not detect.
Meghan DiMuzio, director of the Coalition of App Fairness, which includes companies with problems with Apple, such as Epic Games, said that Apple “tells tales about privacy and user security and uses them as a shield against -a competitive practices of the App Store”. He said Apple’s security standards “do not apply consistently to all applications” and “apply only when there is a benefit to Apple”.
An Apple spokesman told the Washington Post that Apple was taking immediate action when criminals cheated iPhone users.
The spokesman also said that user trust is the reason why the “App Store” was created and that studies have shown that the “App Store” is the most secure application store.
Apple refused to comment on how often scam apps are found in its app store. However, the company said that 6.500 applications for “hidden or undocumented operations” were removed last year.
He also said that he has discovered other cryptocurrency scam apps in the App Store, but did not give further details. As for Trezor, the company does not offer an iOS app and a spokesman said it has been alerting Apple and Google for fake Trezor apps “for years”.
Apple said it removed the fake Trezor app and blocked the developer. In fact, five people have been cheated by the iOS scam app Trezor and a total of $1.6 million worth of Bitcoin has been stolen.
Sensor Tower data show that the fake Trezor app was in the “App Store” from January 22 to February 3 and until then had over 1.000 downloads. The 17.1 Bitcoin lost by the user is worth almost $1 million today.
Another iPhone user who lost $14.000 worth of Ethereum and Bitcoin said an Apple spokesman told him the company was not responsible for the loss of money from the fake Trezor app.
