According to a previous revelation by researcher Alex Kleber, some fraudulent Chinese applications have managed to get past Apple’s review process and into the App Store despite the company’s claims that its review team was able to intercept $1.5 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2021.
The researcher stated, “The study comprises an applications analysis of 7 separate Apple developer accounts that are controlled by the same Chinese developer (identified so far; there may be many others that have not been uncovered in the App Store).” And to top it all off, the applications have a ton of favorable evaluations, which mask the negative ones. The applications have also been seen gathering data that is unrelated to how they work and attempting to fool users into paying for their services.
Researcher Finds Many Chinese Apps In The Apple App Store
The research also draws attention to the abusive and anticompetitive behavior exhibited by the apps, which it describes as “repeated spams of the same programs in order to capture as much market share as possible in specific sectors.” Sunnet Technology Inc, Netozo Limited, Safeharbor Technology L Ltd, Wildfire Technology Inc, Boulevard Technology Ltd, Polarnet Limited, and Xu Lu are some of the developer accounts mentioned in the study.
The virus is made live when the applications pass the approval process, and the apps are managed by a remote server. In essence, the software that is presented to consumers is different from the one that makes it through the review process. According to the research, the apps “modify the program UI to maximize income and bypass or hide items from the Apple review team.”