AI is taking over the world, and so it’s good to see reassuring evidence of its limitations occasionally. So it is with a new warning for Apple’s iPhone users, that “hackers may steal your payment details” unless you “reactivate Apple Pay.”
Google regularly boasts that its new AI defences detect almost all scams to keep users safe, and yet this ridiculous warning appears on YouTube. It includes a “Protect Now” button. Do not tap on this button. Ignore the warning. Exit the app.
What’s perhaps even more worrying is that link takes you to Apple’s App Store, to an app promising to “clean up” the storage on both your iPhone and iCloud account. Of all the apps you don’t need, this is the one you don’t need the most.
Hackers are not about to steal your payment details from Apple Pay, and even if that was a real thing, it would not be down to the volume of unoptimized storage on your iPhone. But the serious warning here is that these empty apps are a threat to all. They are vacuous and more likely to carry malware and scams than real apps — avoid them.
I reached out to Google to ask about the ad and why it escaped any form of detection. I also reached out to Apple to ask why apps advertised in this way are allowed onto its store. And I asked the app developer for a comment as well.
Google told me “we have removed the ad shared with us and suspended the advertiser’s account for violating our policies. We expressly prohibit ads that scam people by misrepresenting information about products or services.”
The button takes you to the App Store, but it could take you to a fake Apple website echoing the Apple Pay warning and offering a remedy. In a world where we are plagued with malicious emails, messages and websites, tech firms need to do better.
Separately, there’s another warning this week as Apple users are inundated with pop-ups “saying ‘Congratulations, You Won a Mac!’” It’s obviously “a total scam! These alerts are a common ploy cybercriminals use to trick you into downloading malware.”
Per Mac Observer, these popups are “counting on your excitement for free stuff to make you click. Once you do, they can steal your personal info and even take over your device.” The answer is blocking popups and clearing browsing history and data.
The underlying warning is the same. Pop-ups are never good news and clicking or tapping is almost always a bad idea. As both these warnings show, it’s all too easy to push misleading information onto devices. Don’t take the bait.