A fake Phantom wallet on Apple's app store is said to be withdrawing user funds when the user restores their account with their private key.

This application closely emulates the original Phantom wallet published by Phantom Technologies Incorporated. When searching for Phantom wallet, the app shows up as an ad even before the original app.

Fake Phantom Wallet appears before the original as an advertisement | Source: Apple app store

While the original app is classified as a utility, the fake app is classified as an educational app published by Meta Voxify. The publisher only has this fake application in its list.

Interestingly, the description of this bogus app is for an app called Voxify AI, which appears to be a text-to-speech converter. Searching for Voxify Ai on the app store now directs users to the fake Phantom wallet app.

This app has many one-star reviews. In the app's reviews, some users complained about losing money when loading their wallets into the fake app.

Users report losing money on fake apps | Source: Apple app store

At the time of publication, the app has been removed from the app store. But it still exists on the platform when searching for “Meta Voxify” or “Voxify ai”.

This is not the first case of malicious apps entering the Apple store. 

Last year, bad actors deployed a clone of the cryptocurrency wallet Rabby Wallet. Similar to the current incident, the wallet was shown as the first result when searching for “Rabby Wallet”.

The wallet was initially only available as a standalone desktop app and Google Chrome extension at the time.

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Scammers have increasingly targeted smartphone users over the past few years. A 2023 study by cybersecurity firm Sophos revealed that pig slaughter scammers are evading Google and Apple's app store security measures to deploy malicious apps.

The scammers used an app signed with a valid certificate issued by Apple to get approval. They will then connect the application to malicious servers under their control to defraud victims.

Whether the bad guys used similar tactics in this case remains unclear.

In this context, Mende Matthias, co-founder of the Dubai blockchain center, is said to have lost more than $100,000 worth of funds from his Phantom wallet. He has insisted that his funds were transferred to another wallet address despite multiple security measures in place.

Furthermore, he also denied interacting with any malicious links or websites. He concluded that he may have been targeted because he “openly shared” the money he invested.

Matthias has also confirmed that his funds were not lost through the fraudulent Phantom wallet app. However, he has not revealed how the attackers exploited his wallet.

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