A 9to5Mac investigation reveals dozens of applications that disguise gaming platforms as simple games and utilities. Here are the details.
Betting platforms pose as simple apps
Brazilian users browsing the App Store rankings in categories such as Navigation, Travel and Weather have noticed a growing number of poorly made games appearing among the top results, many of them with AI-generated animal illustrations as their app icons.
It turns out that these are so-called stealth apps, which are just a front for hidden betting and gambling apps.
A 9to5Mac investigation has discovered more than 60 apps that behave exactly as shown in the App Store screenshots when accessed from virtually anywhere in the world, except Brazil.
When opened from a Brazilian IP address, the same apps reveal online betting platforms, as shown in the example below, which is currently the top app in the Weather category:
Most apps are published by developer accounts with a single listing on the App Store. Many of the developers’ names seem to be common in Vietnam and other countries, more so than in Brazil.
The apps also tend to use similar (and, in some cases, identical) privacy policies, generally have no recorded updates, and are around 15MB in size.
Digging deeper, 9to5Mac found a public GitHub repository containing instructions for a Cursor agent to create simple vibration-encoded applications that serve as fronts for betting platforms.
The instructions call for each app to include three to five visible interfaces, use a marketable name and an animal-themed icon (a dragon, ox, rabbit, rat, or tiger), and support remotely controlled routing to the local app, a web page within the app, or an external website.
They also say that apps should be built around simple, immediately understandable concepts, with clear branding and several standout feature areas, while also differing enough from each other to appear as separate products.
The repository also includes explicit instructions aimed at preventing apps from being flagged as suspicious during App Store review. These include giving each app remote startup and setup codes with unique names, making it difficult for reviewers to identify them as part of the same group.
Ironically, the App Store’s own recommendation system seems to have little trouble grouping apps together, as the “You May Also Like” section on several of these apps directs users to other suspicious apps more often than to genuine apps.
Although this is far from being a new problem on the App Store, the discovery comes immediately after renewed pressure of Brazilian authorities for the availability of unauthorized betting applications on Apple and Google platforms.
Just a few days ago, Brazil’s Justice Ministry gave both companies five business days to explain how they detect apps that hide or change gambling features after approval, verify that operators are federally authorized, and prevent minors from accessing gambling services.
Today Apple was also ordered to remove eight “nudify” AI apps from the App Store after pressure from the San Francisco city attorney, which came six months after a separate investigation by the Technology Transparency Project discovered dozens of similar applications on the platform.
9to5Mac has reached out to Apple for comment and we will update this story if we hear back.
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