On each application platform, there may be illegal applications that successfully break through to defraud users of money or personal information. Developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who is famous for uncovering app scams, recently discovered a new type of fraud on the Mac version of the App Store. It uses a pop-up window to make it difficult to exit the app once you open it, unless you are willing to spend a lot of money. It is simply another type of blackmail.
A new scam appears in the Mac version of the App Store, and you can’t quit without subscribing
Although Apple has always had its own application review mechanism to protect the security of devices and users, even Apple did not catch the new scam this time. This scam app was first discovered by Edoardo Vacchi and is called “My Netronome”. According to Vacchi and Eleftheriou, once the app is open, it is locked and cannot be exited from keyboard shortcuts or menus unless you agree to subscribe for $9.99 per month (although you can force quit).
I didn’t think this was possible:
This App Store app immediately asks you for money and then *disables* the “Quit” option so that you can never close it!
And it’s been like that on the App Store for years!https://t.co/DpOLtz9PCd pic.twitter.com/UCnRq2WvnF
— Kosta Eleftheriou (@keleftheriou) April 14, 2022
Sometime after Eleftheriou tweeted about My Metronome, the app appeared to have been removed from the store. When you try to open the link, a notification pops up stating that the connection is no longer available in your region. (To be clear, though, you should not, under any circumstances, try to download any of the apps mentioned in this article out of curiosity). The story doesn’t end there, as developer Jeff Johnson discovered that the developer of the My Metronome app, Music Paradise, LLC, is related to another App Store developer, Groove Vibes. The privacy policies listed on both developer websites (linked on their App Store pages) indicate that they are registered at the same address, and both mention the same representative person, Akadem GmbH.
UPDATE: This developer “Music Paradise, LLC” appears to be the exact same developer as “Groove Vibes”. Registered at the same street address in Novosibirsk, Russia!
Also, both apps lock up your Mac and can’t be quit, which is what led me to investigate.https://t.co/c4Tqk83y7X https://t.co/xum3HGn8oI pic.twitter.com/363WK9bNNc
— Jeff Johnson (@lapcatsoftware) April 12, 2022
foreign media The Verge I decided to test it myself and downloaded another Music Paradise application “Music Paradise Player” from the Mac App Store, as well as the entire Mac application catalog of Groove Vibes. All of these apps will immediately pop up a message asking you to pay money in the form of a recurring subscription (usually priced around $10 per month). The three Groove Vibes applications are running fine and can be exited using the menu bar or pressing Command+Q. However, two applications from another company and “Music Paradise Player” have the exit option in the menu bar grayed out and do not allow you to press the red close button on the window. Even using keyboard shortcuts does not help.
— Mitchell (@strawberrywell) April 16, 2022
These apps don’t completely lock your computer like ransomware we’ve seen in the past because you can always find a way to exit, but that doesn’t justify the existence of these apps on the App Store. Apple has been advocating that users should install apps from its store, but it has not done a good job in controlling this. In theory, apps should have tried them during review and rejected them for violating Apple’s guidelines. However, there have been many cases of this, including previously Eleftheriou discovered an iPhone app that wouldn’t run unless you gave it a positive rating, as well as a children’s game that turned into an actual gambling app when opened from a certain country. The company has updated its policies in an attempt to make building scam apps less attractive, but it has clearly failed at actually enforcing the rules.
Source: KOCPC Chinese