Beware of Fake Coronavirus Mobile Tracking Apps That Can Steal Your Privacy

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Coronavirus became widespread panic ever since it turned out to be a pandemic. But that’s not all – the panic got even more intense when a bunch of fraud apps came out in public to loot them of their privacy amid COVID-2019 threat. 

These apps claim to be a live tracker for coronavirus and prompt users to download an app. Following the panic that has been created, scared people using the app thought that they avoiding and tracking the pandemic. However, the malicious app was really tracking them up close – seeking permission to the device’s camera, photos, videos, and location. This permission allows the attackers to take photos and record videos from the user’s phone.

An app called “COVID19 Tracker” came up with this fraud intent disguising itself to be a coronavirus outbreak map tracker. By the time the targeted people realized that it is actually ransomware, it already locked down their phones and demanded them to pay the hackers $100 in bitcoin within 48 hours, according to DomainTools.

Beware-of-Fake-Coronavirus-Mobile-Apps

Another Android app called “Corona live 1.1” came out pretending to be the real “corona live” app. It furthermore used information from the legitimate Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker with geographic data displaying the rate of infections and deaths per country. However, it was actually “trojanized” with spyware in order to track every activity of the user. 

This isn’t the complete list of all the fraudulent apps masking themselves as coronavirus-related tracking apps. Last week, cybersecurity also recognized multiple fake COVID-19 tracker maps that are infecting people like the actual coronavirus pandemic is. 

Hence, we suggest staying clear of any links that you come across in the texts or websites claiming to track coronavirus.