A fake app pretending to be Amazon's official Alexa has managed to climb the download charts in App Store.
It's not just the Google Play Store that seems to be vulnerable to fake apps, which are designed to take advantage of people's trust in a platform. The Apple App Store is just as vulnerable, as the recent app called "Setup for Amazon Alexa" is strong evidence of this.
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 that big 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 purchased a package from 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 started realizing 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 in mobile app discovery platforms phones and recounts that they should always be careful when downloading something on their mobile.
