A fake Bitcoin wallet app has emerged on the top of App Store’s search results despite Apple’s infamously stringent policies around allowing crypto players to publish their apps on the App Store. Named the ‘Trezor Wallet Suite’, this app is a duplicate version of ‘Trezor’, which is a legitimate crypto app. Members of the crypto community browsing the App Store for digital wallet apps must exercise caution to keep themselves safe against this fake app.
Rafael Yakobi, Managing Partner at The Crypto Lawyers law firm, posted a detailed thread on Twitter along with screenshots to prove his claims.
“The first search result for ‘Trezor’ in the App Store is a malicious application that will request your seed phrase, allowing its operators to steal all of your crypto. The name of the malicious application is Trezor Wallet Suite,” Yakobi tweeted.
:rotating_light: Security Alert :rotating_light:
The first search result for “Trezor” in the Apple @AppStore is a malicious application that will request your seed phrase, allowing its operators to steal all of your crypto.
The name of the malicious application is “Trezor Wallet Suite.” You can verify… pic.twitter.com/vWsXTHpkYK
— Rafael Yakobi (@Deliver8tor) June 19, 2023
These search results had been emerging for users across the US and the UK, as pointed out by the crypto researcher.
After iOS users flagged the suspicious app on social networking platforms, Apple has supposedly taken off the Trezor Wallet Suite app from the App Store.
A quick search on the App Store on Wednesday, June 21, did not show the fake app on the platform, Gadgets 360 can confirm. The situation may vary in other regions.
Another Twitter thread also claimed that Apple seems to have removed this app, flagging it as suspicious.
:black_small_square: #Apple has a general policy of removing suspicious apps from its App Store once alerted. However, despite the removal of the initial malicious app, further searches on the App Store revealed another potentially nefarious application called “MyTREZŌR Suite: One Edition.”
— Amit Ghosh (@AmitGho63588713) June 21, 2023
It is ironical that Apple, that boasts stringent security measures and maintains a much-criticised strict policy against crypto apps on its storefront, was easily violated by this scam app, publishers of which remain unknown as of now.
This development comes just days after the iPhone-maker engaged in a spat with two non-custodial digital wallet providers, Zeus and Damus. In both these cases, Apple has said that these apps violate its App Store policies.
This year in April, a California appeals court also called Apple’s policy of not allowing app developers to integrate third party payment methods with their services as ‘unlawful’. The court ruling is expected to bring changes to Apple’s App Store payment practices and could also allow Web3 apps to add more operability to their iOS iterations.