A fake application pretending to be Amazon's official Alexa, has managed to climb the download charts in the App Store.
Looks like it's not the only one Google Play Store vulnerable to fake apps, designed to take advantage of people's trust in a platform. Apple's App Store is just as vulnerable, as the recent app titled “Setup for Amazon Alexa” is stark proof of that.
This particular fake app has not only managed to stay in the App Store, which is strictly controlled by Apple but has also been downloaded. Although not so easy to achieve, the application reached No6 in Utilities and No75 in Top Free. Most regular and legitimate apps in the App Store have not even managed to get so high in their dream.
How is that possible?
It's not much of a mystery that it managed to get so high on the App Store. It can easily be explained because of Christmas. Apparently, many users received or bought one packet by Amazon Alexa and started looking for a tool in the App Store. The wave of searches and users pushed it to the top.
Unlike the Google Play Store, the App Store is much better controlled and every app is evaluated before being accepted. Many large-scale applications, even large companies, were rejected, but somehow this false application managed to pass the approval process.
Shortly after users began to realize that it was fake, "Setup for Amazon Alexa" was removed and is no longer available. Although the news does not concern users in Greece, it gives them an idea of what is happening today on mobile application platforms and states that they should always be careful when downloading something to their mobile phone.