Beware of these fake apps that uses ‘Jio/Jeo’ in their names
Credit to Author: Quick Heal Security Labs| Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2017 12:53:52 +0000
Jio took the Indian telecom market by storm when it made its entry with free unlimited calls and data offers. People went into a kind of frenzy for acquiring this service. And with its ‘truly unbelievable’ offers, Jio also launched an array of apps in the Google Play Store such as Jio4GVoice, JioChat, JioMusic, etc. And unsurprisingly, these apps also became popular with many. And this is where cybercriminals came into action. Recently, Quick Heal Security Labs found 3 fake apps in the Play Store that go by the names ‘Jio Speed Booster’, ‘JEO Validity Extender& Checker’, and ‘JWO Validity Extender& Checker’ having more than 5,00,000 downloads. Let’s take a look at each of these apps in detail. 1. Jio Speed Booster Fig 1 About the app The app claims that it helps you configure your device to get the best possible network from Jio. The app’s graphical user interface looks like what’s shown in the below figures. Fig 1 (a) Fig 1 (b) Fig 1 (c) Our Analysis The app asked us to accept its ‘Terms and Conditions’, but we could not find them anywhere. The app pretended to ‘search for bands’ by displaying a fake progress bar and displayed a message as shown in fig 1 (c). In the background, however, the app started loading advertisements. Verdict The Jio Speed Booster App does nothing to boost your Jio network but consumes a large amount of data to display unwanted advertisements. Status The app has been removed from Google Play Store after Quick Heal Security Labs reported it. 2. JEO Validity Extender&Checker Fig 2 About the app The app claims to help Jio users to check their plan’s validity and extend it. The below figures show how the app looks like. Fig 2 (a) Fig 2 (b) Fig 2 (c) Our Analysis After selecting ‘JEO VALIDITY CHECK’ it asked for a Jio SIM number. When we entered one, we found that the app did not really verify when the number is registered with Jio or if it belongs to a different service provider. It only validated whether it is a 10 digit number. In the next step, the app asked for details including Jio mobile number, name, email ID, city, and state. The provided details were sent to a third party website exposing them to an untrusted source. Verdict The JEO Validity Extender&Checker app does not do what it says but tricks the user into revealing their personal information. Status The app has been removed from Google Play Store after Quick Heal Security Labs reported it. 3. JWO Validity Extender&Checker Fig 3 About the app The app works in the same way as JEO Validity Extender&Checker does but only differs in its user interface (fig 3) Status The app has been removed from Google Play Store after Quick Heal Security Labs reported it. Third-party fake apps We found apps similar to the above three on third-party app stores. One of these is the The JIO Upgrade APP that claims to offer a free upgrade to Jio services. Fig 4 represents a web page where it asks the user to download the app and enjoy 25 GB of Internet per day for lifetime. Fig 4 Our Analysis Scammers are spreading the link of this web page through WhatsApp so that they can attract a large number of users. Verdict Jio hasn’t declared any such offers officially and these offers are clearly fake. Fig 5. WhatsApp message claiming extra benefits for Jio users How do attackers benefit from these fake apps These fake apps were created to either steal user’s personal information (as seen in the case of the JEO Validity Extender&Checker) or serve the user with a large amount of ads (Jio Speed Booster). Both these activities generate revenue for the attacker. As verified by VirusTotal, Quick Heal Mobile Security Apps were the first to detect all these…
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