The Mac App Store is the application store through which applications for Macs are sold after a check made by Apple to certify that they will not harm us. Well, this check is equal to zero, because this weekend we discovered that applications from the Mac App Store steal user data without them knowing it.
Adware Doctor, an application that was on the 4th place in the list of the most bought in the US, was analyzed and it was discovered that it was stealing data from users and sending it to a server in China. In the description, the application mentioned cleaning the Mac of malware as functionality, but in reality it loads the browsing history from Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and uploads it to servers in China.
Applications from the Mac App Store STEAL User Data
Following it, other applications developed by a company called Trend Micro, Inc. were confirmed as doing exactly the same thing, although the data was not reaching China, but elsewhere. And in this situation, the browsing history of the users was stolen, without them knowing, the applications requesting access to the main information directory of the Macs, apparently for other purposes.
"The app is currently listed on Apple's Mac App Store as the company's fourth-highest "Top Paid" software program, behind Final Cut Pro, Magnet and Logic Pro X. It is also the store's No. 1 paid utility. The app currently costs $4.99, is validly signed by Apple, and its listing on the Mac App Store is accompanied by a majority of lavishly positive [likely fake] five-star reviews. Adware Doctor promotes its app as preventing "malware and malicious files from infecting your Mac."
Apple quickly removed these applications from the Mac App Store, as is normal, but how many other similar applications in the store steal people's data without them knowing? Those from Apple should have detected this problem before the applications were published, but unfortunately this did not happen, and it will not happen in the future, unfortunately for us.
