Jio is the current most popular and trusted Indian telecom network, It is the second-largest mobile network in India. Jio provides LTE services at an affordable price. Jio has launched MyJio app for their customers to manage jio services, track data balance & plan expiry date, contact customer care through live chat etc. This app has received over 100 million-plus download on the play store.
We know that the Play store has also become a place of fake apps. The number of fraud apps on the Play Store is getting increased day by day. In a blogpost by Symantec, there are about 152 fake jio Android apps available on the Google Play Store which are promising to offer free data but displays only Ads to the users of these fake apps. The developers of these fake apps are earning income by fooling the users.
These 152 apps were developed under 21 different package names. All these apps claim to give free data ranging from 25 GB to 125Gb from one day to a year. But this is not the truth, the users of these malicious apps will not get any free data boosts and their phones will be used by the developers to earn money by showing ads.
However, if you have already kept JioSecurtity installed on your smartphones than your device will not be affected y these malicious apps. JioSecurity is free for the Jio users and it is powered by Norton mobile security. Symantec has also mentioned in its post that all these fake apps are using the same method to fool the users.
How the Users are being tricked?
- The fake apps have a similar app icon and user interface as the genuine one. This is misleading the users to download these apps.
- Making a false impression in the minds of the users by asking a few details like the mobile number, email etc to provide free data. The reality is that the app’s source code depicts no such process is actually taking place.
- The third method is by asking the users to share the app through WhatsApp, FB, SMS and other social media platforms.
- And Last, these apps are showing continuous ads which increases the chance of getting more clicks by the user.
These fakes apps have received about 39,000 downloads by June 2019. The Jio users are highly recommended to first verify the originality of the app before installing them.
