While critics often complain about the “walled garden” ecosystem of the iOS platform and its App Store, there’s one thing that’s hard to deny: iOS is about as secure as you could want it to be. While malware on the Android platform is an ever-increasing threat, iOS users generally don’t have to worry much about it. After all, all iOS apps are checked by Apple’s own reviewers, so a malware app could never make it to the App Store to be downloaded by users.
Well, almost never.
It seems a Russian malware app made it to the iOS App Store and Google Play recently. The app is called Find and Call. Once you download and open it it uploads your address book to a server, then spams all your contacts with texts prompting them to go download the app.
Both Apple and Google have, not surprisingly, pulled the app from their respective markets. It is no longer available for download from either the App Store or from Google Play. The app was originally identified by Kapersky Lab, who discovered what the app did and notified both Google and Apple of the problem.
Of course, it should go without saying that if you downloaded the app, you should go ahead and delete that as soon as possible. Without opening it.