Purported Security Apps in the Mac App Store Found to Be Stealing User Data ⇥ blog.malwarebytes.com

Thomas Reed of Malwarebytes, with a small collection of apps available on the Mac App Store that exfiltrate user data:

It’s blindingly obvious at this point that the Mac App Store is not the safe haven of reputable software that Apple wants it to be. I’ve been saying this for several years now, as we’ve been detecting junk software in the App Store for almost as long as I’ve been at Malwarebytes. This is not new information, but these issues reveal a depth to the problem that most people are unaware of.

We’ve reported software like this to Apple for years, via a variety of channels, and there is rarely any immediate effect. In some cases, we’ve seen offending apps removed quickly, although sometimes those same apps have come back quickly (as was the case with Adware Doctor). In other cases, it has taken as long as six months for a reported app to be removed.

In many cases, apps that we have reported are still in the store.

These are exactly the kinds of things I expect the app review process should catch before apps like these and the aforementioned Adware Doctor make it into the store. The Mac App Store should, if nothing else, be a place for any user to find safe software. Ideally, it’s also one with high-quality, useful, top-tier apps, but security and privacy ought to be the baseline.

(Thanks to Anthony Reimer.)