Fake Uniswap Apps on Google Play Store are Stealing Thousands of Dollars

According to Nuggets News founder Alex Saunders, a fake Uniswap app is available for download on the Google Play Store. At the time of press, the tech giant had not removed the malicious application. Saunders added that someone had already lost $20,000 to the app which apparently asks for private keys.

Just had a member of ours lose $20k to a fake @UniswapProtocol mobile App on @GooglePlay store as it has 100 fake positive reviews so he trusted to input private key backup phrase.

Please retweet this. Please report the App. 🚨💳⚠️https://t.co/uY3NQz3pFn pic.twitter.com/PXjmdsvPP3

— Alex Saunders 🇦🇺👨‍🔬 (@AlexSaundersAU) November 19, 2020

Uniswap Copycat Scams

Google Play Store has over a hundred fake reviews giving the malware a 4.5-star rating. It has been downloaded over a hundred times and was uploaded by a spurious developer email account called [email protected]. When trying to report the dodgy app and flag it as inappropriate, Google redirects users into a rabbit warren of pages that fail to accomplish the task of warning the company about the dubious applications on its app store. Some of the replies to the tweet commented that people are reluctant to invest in crypto because of things like this. Apparently, this is not the only fake Uniswap app. BeInCrypto’s Russian domain reported on a similar scam last week.

Avenues of Attack

Google is not the only one that has disseminated scams and malicious software. Facebook is a hotbed of misinformation and scams and it has been widely reported that the social media giant was found guilty of running fraudulent advertising in late-2019. Hardware wallet maker Ledger has also been a platform for scammers as phishing campaigns targeting users have escalated following a data breach earlier this year. Consumers who have purchased Ledger hardware wallets have been waking up to nasty emails claiming that their crypto assets are in danger of being stolen. Some have even accessed their devices to find them empty and the company offers no support whatsoever, blaming the end-user for these seemingly impossible incursions. Hardware wallets are not foolproof despite what the companies that make them claim, the risks are real and crypto-assets can be lost. According to a recent CipherTrace report, crypto crime has actually decreased this year, but decentralized finance-based scams have risen. There have been around $100 million in losses and thefts related to DeFi protocols in 2020, the report added.