Sophie Blake
A mobile security company has announced that a keyboard application named “Ai.type” is a malware. The app, which was recently removed from the Google Play Store, is still in use on both iOS and Android devices.
Smartphone owners benefit from a variety of applications to make their devices even more customized. Perhaps the most popular of these applications are those that change the keyboard design. However, as with all other application categories, some keyboard applications are maliciously developed to capture consumer data. One of these applications is “Ai.type”.
Now, a security company called Upstream has done a new research on this application. The result of the research reveals that the users of this application, which has been downloaded more than 40 million, are in great danger.
According to a report published by Upstream, Ai.type offers invisible ads. The application can also generate fake messages and access almost all applications with sensitive data such as photos, messages and contacts. Moreover, the application can perform some different activities by hiding users’ credentials.
The report says that 14 million suspicious transactions were carried out on 110.000 mobile devices that the application was installed on. It shows that these suspicious transactions were carried out in 13 different countries, especially in Brazil and Egypt. According to experts, if these suspicious transactions are not prevented, the total loss of the victims will be $18 million.
The Ai.type app has not been available in the Google Play Store for a while. It was removed from the platform a while ago. However, the latest research shows that the actions of the malware have increased after it was removed from the Google Play Store.
The app is not available in the Google Play Store, but iPhone owners can still download it via official channels. If you have already installed this application on your Android and iPhone, we highly recommend you to uninstall it.
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