Categories: Apple Apps & SoftwareApple iPhone

Dangerous iPhone Apps

About dangerous iPhone apps: The iPhone is an excellent smartphone and allows the downloading of many different apps. However, some applications may be dangerous. From material designed for mature audiences, to apps stealing your personal information, it is best to avoid downloading certain apps. To stay safe, one should stick to downloading only those apps approved by the Apple Store. Some apps, such as the “Hottest Girls”, which allowed the user to rate pictures of women in risqué apparel and poses, were banned by the Apple Store in order to avoid children’s exposure to inappropriate content.

Recently, the news giant CNN, showed that many apps were stealing users’ personal information, obviously without letting the user know. Apple has since removed these dangerous apps, but what is surprising and scary, is that those apps were initially available through the iTunes App Store. Furthermore, the number of these delinquent apps ranges in the hundreds! In fact, the affected apps were in upwards of 265 apps in total. Even more problematic, is that the apps were downloaded over a million times worldwide!

The illegitimate process involved a software designed by Youmi, which collected personal info such as email addresses and serial numbers, and quietly sent it back to its servers. Once the problem was discovered, Apple created a strict policy for apps to follow and banned the ones that did not fit their guidelines.

Information gathering without disclosing the purposes is somewhat commonplace on the Internet. For example, the author of these lines entered their cellphone number on a popular Website. And since then, has been constantly receiving long distance phone calls from telemarketers. Fortunately, the numbers are easy to spot. (They often start with 1-800 or 1-866.) Interestingly enough, there are services on the Internet to discover who calls from a specific number, a reverse lookup, so to speak if it’s something that you want to pursue. Most people however, prefer to never get solicitation calls to begin with. The simple act of entering a phone number for something, can cause many headaches later on, thanks to these apps spreading your info.

What comes as an even bigger surprise, is that this is by far not the only breach in Apple’s tight security and privacy system. Luckily, Apple is quick to resolve such problems and has since taken appropriate measures to ensure user our safety and security.