Facebook reminds us how careful we must be before installing an app on our phone. The social network sent to 1 million users an alert concerning the security of their data. The notification explains that some malicious applications installed on smartphones may have had access to personal information.
In all, 400 mobile software have been identified as dangerous. Some promised to play with funny photo filters, others to grant easy access to the statistics of its Facebook pages, but all were really intended to encourage Internet users to connect via the social network to unlock features, when in fact they were fishing for personal data. “Many apps offered little or no functionality before login, and most offered no functionality even after the person agreed to login”squeaks David Agranovich, a security manager at Meta.
Apps have been removed by Apple and Google
The vast majority of affected apps were hosted on Android’s Play Store, but at least 47 also managed to evade Apple’s protective measures to land on the App Store. Both Google and Apple have removed the culprits from their virtual store. “Users are also protected by the Google Play Protect service, which blocks the operation of these applications”even wanted to add Google.
Don’t panic, if you haven’t received any notifications on your Facebook account, you are not affected by the situation. On the other hand, if you have seen the alert pass on your account, it is advisable to change your password and to do some cleaning on the apps that you have recently installed on your terminal.