App to Find Security Compromised Apps

by Rian

About a year ago, I wrote about the app spamming in the App Store. Though Apple has since updated the guidelines to block these copycats, it seems the damage has already been done. There are compromises after compromises, and fake AI assistants or LLMs make it particularly more vulnerable for the users as more data shared often means better tailored results.

Firehound is a website that lists the apps that are known to leak the user’s data. At the time of the writing, much of the features are still in development. But it offers basic features to search an app I was looking for, or to check the ranking of which apps spill the most beans. As you can imagine, not all apps on the ranks are AI spams.

It’s an age old adage that the security and safety of a user (and their privacy) falls under the user’s responsible security practices. There is only so much app stores will do for a user, and faulting them however large won’t reverse the damages. If you are about to install an app through Apple App Store or any other app stores available, please do check if the app itself is the authentic one and a safe one — quick Google search would do.