By Abhik Sengupta: Facebook parent Meta has identified over 400 Android and iOS apps that are stealing Facebook users' login credentials.
The company has also shared the full list of these apps to warn users, since many of these applications could be available on third-party app stores.
Many of the identified apps claim to offer photo editing tools, VPN services, and other utilities. Some of them are also games that require users to share
their personal information. Meta says most of the identified malicious apps offer a fake 'Login With Facebook' prompt to extract user IDs and passwords.
Needless to say, attackers could potentially gain full access to a user's account and private messages with family, friends, and colleagues if the login information is stolen.
In a blog post, David Agranovich, director of Threat Disruption, and Ryan Victory, malware discovery and detection engineer at Meta,
said that the company has already warned Google and Apple about the availability of malware apps on Google Play and Apple App Store, respectively.
The company adds that both companies had taken down both app stores prior to this report's publication. The blog post notes, "We are also alerting
people who may have unknowingly self-compromised their accounts by downloading these apps and sharing their credentials, and are helping them to secure their accounts".
Meta also explains that attackers who developed these apps publish fake reviews to trick others. This also masks "negative reviews by people who have spotted
the defunct or malicious nature of the apps". Meta says users must only download apps from official app stores and check the publisher before downloading a new app.
In case your Facebook ID is compromised, Meta recommends that users should reset their passwords. Also, enable two-factor authentication,
preferably using an Authenticator app such as Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. Meanwhile, here's the full list of apps and users
are advised to download them immediately if they have them on their smartphones.
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BE CAREFULL FOR ANY APPS
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