Fake paid app tops sales at Goolge Play Store

With Android's vulnerability to malware being well known, the number of users buying apps to protect their smartphones, has been rising.

However with no one checking out the claims of anti-virus companies, the number one paid app on the Google Play Store has now been revealed to be a fake anti-virus software.

According to industry watchers, this highlighted one of the major problems with mobile app stores, and while it was more obvious on Android, iOS was not free from fault and in March the team behind the official Tor Browser said, a fake Tor Browser filled with adware and spyware was available on the iTunes App Store for several months before it was removed.

Virus Shield, the top paid app launched at about a week ago for $3.99 (approximately Rs240), has now been taken off the Play Store. The description claimed it would prevent installation of harmful apps; scanning apps, settings, files and media, and protecting the personal information of users.

Additionally there were no advertisements, no permissions, and low impact on battery life, which led thousands of users paying and downloading Virus Shield.

The app however, did nothing at all. According to experts, anti-virus software does nothing but provide the illusion of safety, and the Virus Shield developers did exactly that.

According to users who analysed the source code of the app all it did was change an icon to tell users that their phone was insecure, but was now protected.

The scam, identified by Android Police, was simplicity itself: the app included almost no functionality whatever, yet rose to the top of the sales chart on Google Play at $3.99 per download.

According to Appbrain, the software was downloaded over 10,000 times, putting its take at close to $40,000 for absolutely nothing.

The Register quoted Android Police as saying, ''This is such a brazen and expensive fake that we felt the need to give it some special attention. It's somewhat disheartening that an app so obviously fake could rise to the top, especially considering that it's paid, and possibly hundreds or thousands of people have been defrauded already.''

According to report, at least two of the claims made by the software – low battery consumption and no ads were, however, true.