Third-party developers abusing Microsoft Apps store & publish fake Google Photos App under the Google LLC name but it is originally an Ad clicker which is running in the back round of the windows system.
It’s a completely malicious app that performs various unwanted actvities once installed on the victim’s machine.
It Seems developers managed to trick Microsoft’s certification and published the app as “Album by Google Photos” under the Google LLC name in Windows Store.
Also, the review which is given by users told that the app performed various malicious actions and trying to install malware, keep popup the various unwanted advertisements.
Fake Google Photos App Malicious Actvities
Lawrence analyzed this App and said, When a user starts the Album by Google Photos app they will be greeted by a screen asking them to login to Google Photos. This is a legitimate login screen from Google and though I did not see any indications that your logins are being stolen, I would still not advise logging into Google Photos with this app.
According to geeklatest, There are some main reasons prove this Fake Google Photos App is a completely malicious app.
- Album by G Photos is not available for Android.
- Published by Google LLC while the official publisher is Google Inc.
- The app was published in May 2018 and Google hasn’t confirmed it anywhere.
- The resource bundled with the app is Google Photos logo, rest all are accessed via the web.
The malicious advertisement displays by this fake app similar to the tech support scam that leads to compromise user and the attacker trying to gain access to the victim’s computer using various social engineering technique.
Also, it contains various ad banner and trying to connect with some URLs and it was unclear that how it passed to Microsoft anti-abuse check with the name under Google LLC.
Users need to aware about that “Google Inc” is the official Google publisher on the Microsoft Store so any apps published by Google LLC or similar name is fake
