The team in charge of security at the firm “Meta,” according to the “Axios” website, released a study on this issue on Friday morning, indicating that hundreds of sites that seem secure because they help edit photos and other things trick the user into giving them access to the password.
According to the survey, there are 355 of these malicious applications on smartphones with the “Android” operating system, compared to 47 for “Ios” users.
The researchers drew attention to the fact that 40% of these harmful programmes, along with others that were more focused on games and business, also make the claim to offer image-editing services.
According to experts, this intrusion starts when web developers construct harmful programmes and present them in application stores under the guise of necessary and regular services.
When the user downloads the application, he discovers that he must sign up using his Facebook account, and once he does so, the road to information theft is blocked.
Through his Facebook account, the user grants the developers of dangerous programmes access to all of his data stored on the platform when he accepts to register with them.
And if the email address is connected to the Facebook account and its password, the owners of these malicious applications might be able to access other data, such the email.
The director of threat mitigation at Meta, David Agranovich, told reporters that he was unable to estimate the precise number of users who had their passwords possibly taken by fraudulent apps.
According to a Meta official, there may be about a million customers who are affected by the issue, while Google and Apple both stated that they swiftly removed the malicious apps from their stores.
Google and Apple emphasise that while their staff are eager to examine each licenced programme, the screening procedure is unable to find every vulnerability.
Users are advised by Meta to exercise caution while downloading applications that require them to sign up using their Facebook accounts because doing so could open the door for hackers to access their personal data.
Facebook discloses a significant breach, with over a million victims.
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