"Protect Your Data: A Cautionary Tale of Impostor ChatGPT Apps Haunting the iOS and Android Stores"

Credit to Forbes

Beware! Clone apps of ChatGPT are spreading on Android and iOS, putting your data at risk. Thousands of downloads have already been reported.

Recently, several fake ChatGPT apps have emerged on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, taking advantage of users' trust and downloading unofficially. Even a simple search for "ChatGPT" can lead you to these malicious tools.

Top10VPN analysts analyzed the top 10 ChatGPT-related apps on both stores and found that most of these apps are based on the ChatGPT-3 technology. The experts used open-source tools to examine network traffic and detect any risky features that might have been inserted into these apps' code. They also closely examined these cloned apps' privacy policies to learn more about data collection.

Android apps accessing your critical features without permission During their analysis, the researchers learned that two of the Android apps were collecting users' IP addresses and sharing them with third parties. One app, the ChatGPT AI Writing Assistant, has already been downloaded over 100,000 times. If you take a look at the user reviews, it's not a pretty picture. Unfortunately, the app shares users' geolocation data with companies like ByteDance or Amazon.

Three other apps request access to users' audio files, and all of the cloned apps studied had code that directly impacted users' privacy. Without giving permission, users saw these apps accessing their geolocation, camera, photos and videos, and internal storage on their mobile device or tablet.

9 apps directly exploit the GPT-3 technology, giving them credibility with unsuspecting users. Three other tools even offer a paid model to use a version of the AI that is otherwise... free. Here are a few apps to avoid:

ChatGPT 3: CjatGPT IA AI Chat Companion ChatGPT AI Writing Assistant Open Chat – AI Chatbot App Talk GPT – Talk to ChatGPT On iOS, ChatGPT apps charging up to $15,000 On iOS, the cyber experts found 5 apps hiding third-party trackers on devices that use a fingerprint. One app alone launched over 300 server requests in just 4 minutes, according to Top10VPN.

7 apps did not follow Apple's data collection best practices, and 9 others, like on Android, exploited OpenAI's GPT-3 technology. Even more outrageous, 8 apps charged users... up to $15,000 for access!

Protect yourself from these dangerous clone apps by only downloading officially from trusted sources and being cautious when granting app permissions. Don't fall prey to these fake ChatGPT apps, keep your data safe!

Source : Clubic