Fake WalletConnect on Google Play

[melnyktetiana72]

Fraud is a very popular topic these days. To protect yourself, follow these simple tips:

Download apps only from official websites.

Check the developer: Look for well-known and reliable developers.

Evaluate the number of downloads: Apps with a large number of downloads are usually more trustworthy.

Be cautious with permissions: If an app requests access to personal information without a valid reason, it’s better not to download it.

[Shishir99]

Not because they are unable of doing so, but you understand how some people become complacent and fail to examine several details, such as reviews, before downloading or even using the program. When it comes to apps, Apple is even slightly safer than other platforms. The worst place to find fraudulent apps is the Play Store, where it seems like anyone can publish whatever program they want. Before I download any wallet from anyplace, I make sure to complete my homework properly. I don't know why play are not selecting the kinds of apps they allow on their platform. Anything that goes wrong with any app was suppose to be their responsibility to make sure what they are delivering is suppose to be the best and with a good warranty, is because people don't complain to much that is why they don't care.

I am not an Apple user so I don't know if there are many fake apps on the app store or not. But I know that there are hundreds of apps available on the Play Store that may steal users' information from their devices. People do not check what permission an app is taking when they install it. A VPN does not require to have access to your contact list, or your file manager. But if you check the app permissions, you will see that VPNs have access to many things that they are supposed not to.  I have heard that almost anyone can upload an app on the play store. But, as a user, I expect google to be more strict when they allow people to upload apps on the play store.

[libert19]

Thank goodness, scammers are bad at writing stuff, it makes easy to distinguish them. Look at app description, who would fall that? Only those who blindly install apps.

By the way, recent announcement of WalletConnect airdrop must have also played it's part in increasing victim's count, as for airdrop registration it had requirement to register using WalletConnect (that being using mobile wallet apps like Trust Wallet, Alpha Wallet to login) but some must have misunderstood and would have gone to play store to download the WalletConnect app and would have gotten scammed in process.

What does “Connect via WalletConnect” mean?

The WalletConnect Network facilitates the connection between mobile wallets and apps. When you are using an app and connecting your wallet to login, you'll see “connect via WalletConnect”, as one of the options. Clicking this option will lead you to a QR code that, if accessing the app on desktop, you may scan via your mobile wallet to login with a selected wallet address. If accessing the app via mobile, you may connect directly with a mobile wallet using the connect via WalletConnect option. This connection is made through the WalletConnect Network.

[Felicity_Tide]

~snip

But, as a user, I expect google to be more strict when they allow people to upload apps on the play store.

Or maybe they don't just care in the first place. This is probably what you expect when you don't have a competitor that offers similar service to over 8 billion people across different nations on the planet. Ideally, I believe a good number of the users who download apps from the play store don't really know/have Ideas about privacy intrusion, information stealing and other stuffs, that violates users right, maybe because they are not IT literates(i.e they only know how to use there devices, but don't necessarily know how the device works at a user level).

Thank goodness, scammers are bad at writing stuff, it makes easy to distinguish them. Look at app description, who would fall that? Only those who blindly install apps.

It makes it easier for those with good IT experience, and have been long active on the internet space to distinguish this things, but there are other users that don't even take note of this important things. Probably, they just install the app, and accept every terms and conditions without even reading (maybe due to illiteracy or ignorance). And we all know that some applications won't work without a user allowing certain permissions to contact, messages, etc, which those who are not sensitive enough will likely be a victim at the end of the day.

[Ishicryptic]

It’s getting harder to trust the Google Play Store nowadays. I wonder if it’s the same for the Apple Store. I’m an Android user, so this is a big help for people like me. Although, personally, I don’t use those wallets. It’s definitely better to be cautious and go directly to the official website for download links, it's much safer than just relying on the Play Store, even if it's Google-verified.

But it's worth to mention that this fake wallet managed to stay about 5 months before it's removed from Google Play.

This goes to show how unsafe the social media is, too many scams and hacks, someone must not be too fast to trust anything they see even if it seems like it is coming from the original source. Google play store is quite unsafe, there are fake apps that scammers are using to impersonate the original ones, if someone is not careful and knowledgeable it is very easy to become a victim of these scammers. It is very worrisome that this fake app remained on Google play store for up to 5 months, that is a very long time without detection by the Google management, so users were on their own to research by themselves in order not to be scammed before Google will fished them out. With my knowledge about fake apps on Google play store I never download anything until I'm 100% sure that it's the original app that I want to download. There is need for you to DYOR before clicking on any app or links online to avoid being a victim of scammers and hackers

[libert19]

~snip

But, as a user, I expect google to be more strict when they allow people to upload apps on the play store.

Or maybe they don't just care in the first place. This is probably what you expect when you don't have a competitor that offers similar service to over 8 billion people across different nations on the planet.

Scammers are smart. They know how to get through store's approval's process to get their app on store and later on push their malicious stuff.

Thank goodness, scammers are bad at writing stuff, it makes easy to distinguish them. Look at app description, who would fall that? Only those who blindly install apps.

It makes it easier for those with good IT experience, and have been long active on the internet space to distinguish this things, but there are other users that don't even take note of this important things. Probably, they just install the app, and accept every terms and conditions without even reading (maybe due to illiteracy or ignorance). And we all know that some applications won't work without a user allowing certain permissions to contact, messages, etc, which those who are not sensitive enough will likely be a victim at the end of the day.

I have seen people who do that, blindly accepting everything that app says, these people don't care about their data.

[Shishir99]

Or maybe they don't just care in the first place. This is probably what you expect when you don't have a competitor that offers similar service to over 8 billion people across different nations on the planet. Ideally, I believe a good number of the users who download apps from the play store don't really know/have Ideas about privacy intrusion, information stealing and other stuffs, that violates users right, maybe because they are not IT literates(i.e they only know how to use there devices, but don't necessarily know how the device works at a user level)

Not everyone knows what to do. We cannot expect everyone to know these things. The playstore do not show what permission an app is getting by default before installing the apps. If we download the app from unknown sources, and then try to install the app, the device gives us a warning and show what permission the app is asking for.

You are right about why they do not care about their customers. Since they do not have competitor, they do not feel the need to be strict or to improve their service. I guess they do not even consider Apple as their competitor. I am glad that some smartphone companies started to build their own app store. For example, Vivo developed V-appstore. But I guess these stores also has malicious apps.

[RockBell]

Fraud is a very popular topic these days. To protect yourself, follow these simple tips:

Download apps only from official websites.

Check the developer: Look for well-known and reliable developers.

Evaluate the number of downloads: Apps with a large number of downloads are usually more trustworthy.

Be cautious with permissions: If an app requests access to personal information without a valid reason, it’s better not to download it.

The economy has been pushing many people to do fraudulent things just because they want money. There are too many fake apps especially where you must connect your wallet. It is always better to use their official website to download whatever app you want to download since Play Store can not even give a secure app to make use of if you even search for a particular app the next thing will be that you see different and even some that are identical the only way you can even differentiate will be from the number of download and reviews.

And if you are talking about the developer that will be another difficult aspect to determine if the app is legit or not is not as if some of us are familiar with the developer, to be able to make such a determination you can not be able to use a developer to determine how legit the app is for me is usually the number of downloads and reviews like I said before.

people will only download when they see that they have a very high number of downloads, so giving permission when using the app can be very dangerous sometimes they might use it to access your data so we have to be careful.

[Roseline492]

When it comes to wallet, I usually advice people to download from their original sites, and use standard, well known wallets. The Google app store should not always be trusted as we have seen many false reviews in the past and till date. The scammers can just create it or have a promotion to help review the apps and also give it the best ratings so to trick others into using it.

You are right the best place to get a legit App is through there website because alot of things are happening right now in terms of scam, however I believe that's even the reason those website that enables the use of their apps normally have it on there website because asking there users to get it directly from the Google store through the name will result to getting the wrong app, so like you said Google app store should not be trusted because they have no application or device that can show if a particular app is the original or the duplicate of the main app, however I noticed that they only rate there apps base on the users feedback and since some the scammers knows that method they would always share to their friends to comment  highly of them, so that people will love to try out the app.

However in terms of the walletconnect app I have been seeing it but I never new that they are not a legit app because the rating they had before was actually difficult to no if they are fake, so is good I don't even use to download apps unless from there website and I believe a lot of people most have become a victim now.

[AprilioMP]

When Android users do not understand how to download applications properly, they risk getting a big loss, namely fake applications.
Downloading directly from the Play Store is very dangerous. I used to get valuable experience from this forum that to download properly is from their respective official sites.
I also found several cases of fake applications on the Play Store so from the information I got made me very careful.

I just opened the Play Store on my Android, the result is that I have to complete two security options to secure digital purchases through the Play Store. The two options displayed are use a password or use biometrics.
I didn't do either. Is this risky?

[Z_MBFM]

Google is a big tech giant company so it cannot be expected from them to publish any application on play store without verifying it properly. So I would tell everyone that no matter how many trusted platforms you download any application from, you must check its validity before downloading.  Especially when downloading a crypto wallet one must double check that it is authentic. Because if authentic application is not downloaded then our wallet key can be stolen. On the other hand, in the case of other applications, if the malware software is downloaded on our phone, the entire phone can be hacked. So you should definitely be careful about these things. Thanks to op for sharing this and alerting everyone