Tech Desk, Amar Ujala, New Delhi
Published by: Pradeep Pandey
Updated Mon, 01 Nov 2021 11:15 AM IST
Summary
UltimaSMS scam has been active for a long time in countries like America, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Poland including India. Through these apps, the language information of the users along with location, IMEI number, mobile number and country code was recorded.
Google has removed 151 dangerous apps from the Play Store. All these apps were SMS apps. All these apps were part of UltimaSMS campaign. Apart from SMS, the list included keyboard, camera filters and other utility apps. There were also some apps in this list which were giving premium service by taking money from the users.
Cyber security firm Avast alerted Google about all these apps. All these apps were downloaded over 10.5 million times globally. These apps were stealing users’ money and also passing bank-related information to the hackers. These apps were doing their work in the background without the knowledge of the users.
UltimaSMS scam has been active for a long time in countries like America, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Poland including India. Through these apps, users’ location, IMEI number, mobile number and country code along with phone language information were recorded. As soon as it was opened, these apps used to ask for information like phone number, e-mail id from the users.
As soon as they got the phone number and e-mail information, they deducted a fee of $ 40 for every month which was in the name of premium SMS service. After deducting money, these apps used to crash again and again, due to which users could not get premium service. Avast has asked users to stay away from apps that claim to offer premium SMS service. Also, before downloading any app, get complete information about it.
Expansion
Google has removed 151 dangerous apps from the Play Store. All these apps were SMS apps. All these apps were part of UltimaSMS campaign. Apart from SMS, the list included keyboard, camera filters and other utility apps. There were also some apps in this list which were giving premium service by taking money from the users.
Cyber security firm Avast alerted Google about all these apps. All these apps were downloaded over 10.5 million times globally. These apps were stealing users’ money and also passing bank-related information to the hackers. These apps were doing their work in the background without the knowledge of the users.
UltimaSMS scam has been active for a long time in countries like America, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Poland including India. Through these apps, users’ location, IMEI number, mobile number and country code along with phone language information were recorded. As soon as it was opened, these apps used to ask for information like phone number, e-mail id from the users.
As soon as they got the phone number and e-mail information, they deducted a fee of $ 40 for every month which was in the name of premium SMS service. After deducting money, these apps used to crash again and again, due to which users could not get premium service. Avast has asked users to stay away from apps that claim to offer premium SMS service. Also, before downloading any app, get complete information about it.
