By
Mike J. Davies
Editor in Chief at Casinos.US Updated: 09/29/2019
Mike is our Senior Editor and experienced gambling strategist. A former hockey player, he transitioned to the casino industry after finishing his B.A. in English. Blackjack systems, online casino guides, gambling terms, and more – Mike is familiar with all fine points of gambling.
Trend Micro Analysts Discover Chameleon Gambling Apps on Google and Apple’s Virtual Stores, Photo by www.shutterstock.com
Tech behemoths Google and Apple have always followed very rigid regulations with regards to allowing companies to publish their gambling apps on Google Play and the iOS App Store, respectively.
And now with mobile gambling market experiencing increased growth, the two tech giants are introducing more stringent policies relating to new real-money gaming and wagering products featured in their virtual stores; the reason being that both Google and Apple strive to mitigate the risk of misuse, overcharging, abuse, and breaking of local laws, which differ between geographies.
According to a Trend Micro report on Thursday, the 26th of September, both Google and Apple have recently deleted hundreds of fake apps from their virtual stores.
This move comes after two of Trend Micro’s mobile cybersecurity researchers discovered that the apps were fronts for gambling operations. Apparently, the app descriptions were found to be inconsistent with their content and could very conveniently be converted into real-money gambling apps.
While gambling apps are not completely disallowed from being delivered on to Google Play and the App Store, both tech giants do not permit the publication of real-money gambling and betting apps in:
A majority of the fake apps were targeted towards the Asian demographic, especially the Chinese population. However, as with several other types of gambling, virtual gambling is illegal in Mainland China.
Trend Micro reported that several apps went through Google and Apple’s strict vetting procedures because two versions of the apps were uploaded on the respective virtual store reviewers.
A “good” app deceived the reviewer into buying into its legitimacy by performing all the normal functions as advertised like providing information on entertainment, weather, and fitness.
But once authorized by the reviewer and delivered to the app store, developers would introduce an update to the app that changed its content, transforming it into a gambling app.
Furthermore, the analysts discovered that embedded in the code of these fake apps was a “switch” that could turn the gambling function off and on.
In a statement published on Thursday, Trend Micro had this to say:
Before the app gets reviewed, the developer can simply press the off switch so a normal-looking app starts. The app could pass the app store reviews because the gambling aspect has been hidden. After the apps have passed the review, they can be publicly downloaded from the app stores.
Surprisingly, Trend Micro’s experts maintain that several of the chameleon apps have been very popular and have garnered over 100,000 reviews, with some of them receiving more than 400,000 reviews and still others even featuring among Apple’s App Store Top 100 list.
For instance, according to two app descriptions on the App Store, the apps were supposed to feature content related to wine, but in actuality were gambling apps, and they ranked higher compared to their genuine counterparts.
Cybersecurity researchers believe that developers of these fake apps could have employed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, which would help the apps rank higher in search engine lists.
What’s comforting to many users of the apps is that Trend Micro’s analysts haven’t found any evidence to suggest that the apps contained malware, which could be detrimental to their mobile phones.
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