An application that cannot be refused – Newspaper Kommersant No. 210 (7411) dated 11/14/2022

On Avito, there is a growing number of announcements from individuals and companies about the provision of services for transferring or installing bank applications removed from the App Store on smartphones using a special program and access to iTunes. Such a scheme threatens to transfer all data from the device to attackers, experts warn. Large electronics retailers have begun to promote similar services for Android, but in a different way: they install NashStore and RuStore for the client and download bank applications from there.

“Kommersant” found dozens of ads on Avito from individuals and companies about the provision of a transfer service or installation on smartphones of applications removed from the official App Store marketplace: Sberbank Online, Alfa-Bank, VTB, etc. In total, on request on “installation of banking applications” throughout Russia, the site issues about 5 thousand ads. Avito specified that the proposals “appeared in response to people’s desire to use familiar mobile applications at a time when they became unavailable.” According to them, there are about 1.5–2.5 thousand such ads on the site.

Georgy Tarasov, one of the Avito users who provides a service for installing applications removed from the App Store, told Kommersant that he started doing this by using the service from another specialist. According to him, the service costs an average of 500 rubles. Another user on Avito, who installs remote applications on the iPhone, said that it is necessary to have the AnyDesk and Apple iMazing remote access application on a laptop or PC in order to install applications on the phone.

Mr. Tarasov clarified to Kommersant that the procedure looks like this: a client device is connected to the file transfer program for Apple devices – iMazing, and the profile of the original application is installed on the gadget. If the client had this application installed before and it is in the iTunes library, no additional manipulations are required. If not set, the technician logs into their iTunes account and from there pushes the app to the customer’s device. At the same time, installation services for banking services on Android are also available on Avito, but they are in much less demand, Kommersant’s interlocutors say, since this is a less closed system: to install the application, just download the APK file from the bank’s website.

“Kommersant” analyzed the growing interest in ways to install banking applications removed from the App Store through the “Selecting Yandex Words” service. Thus, the number of requests for “Sberbank for iPhone” in Yandex, which did not exceed 37 thousand per month during 2021, reached 50 thousand in March 2022, 216 thousand in April, and 654 thousand at the peak in September A similar request, but about VTB, grew from 2,000 in February 2022 to 122,000 by March. The growth in the number of iMazing requests in Yandex correlates with the increase in “banking” requests; in November, the application was searched for 171 thousand times (from November 2020 to March 2022 – no more than 5 thousand per month).

Experts urge to treat such services with caution. The described procedure from individuals is relatively secure, but if the service asks the client to provide an Apple ID with a password, there may be a threat of giving attackers access to the list of contacts in email, passwords, contacts in the phone directory, payment and other valuable information, cybersecurity expert warns Kaspersky Lab Igor Golovin: “In addition, the loss of an Apple ID can turn into trouble: it can be extremely difficult to restore access to an account.”

Meanwhile, a service for installing remote applications has also appeared in large official stores, for example, in M.Video-Eldorado. They say that demand for services to install software on smartphones rose sharply in the second quarter amid restrictions in the work of a number of applications.

“Now the top 3 popular services also include transferring data from old devices, which grew by 35% in the third quarter, installing applications, including banking, which increased by 55% qoq, and setting up Apple Watch – doubled interest, ”specify the network. The retailer provides app installation services for iOS and Android without revealing the scheme.

In Citylink, the service for installing remote applications has appeared recently, but it only applies to Android. “We install Russian app stores NashStore and RuStore for the client and download bank applications from there,” they explained. There is also a service for installing a separate application, the cost varies depending on the city, in Moscow it is 260 rubles.

re:Store announced that they are installing applications removed from the App Store for free for all customers. But the network manager at GUM clarified that this only applies to applications that were downloaded to the client’s previous iPhone. In other cases, the manager offered to install alternative applications from Sberbank and VTB on his own. The Alfa-Bank application, according to him, cannot be installed.

Timofei Kornev, Yuri Litvinenko