As part of its ongoing crackdown on malicious loan apps, the Ministry of Home Affairs' Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) has directed Google to remove or disable three more apps on the Play Store. I4C's Threat Analytics Unit said it had identified three "malicious loan applications" targeting Android users seeking quick loan disbursements. The agency said the apps were disguised as legitimate lenders, claiming to offer quick approvals and low interest rates. It is alleged that these apps lured people by promising loans in 5 minutes at low interest rates and later extorted heavy interest and penalties from them.
These three apps are — Horizon Cash Service, Money Score Monitor and Zelicredit.
As soon as a user downloaded these apps onto their phone, the apps would secretly steal all the information from the phone. This included identity documents, bank account-related information, the contact list present on the phone (numbers of relatives and friends), the photo gallery, and access to the camera. Later, these fraudsters would use this information to blackmail people.
Earlier on August 7th, the government had also asked Google to remove 6 fake loan apps. The names of those apps were: Loan Orbit, Hisab, Nexx Loan, One Fund, Credit Factor, and Mobile Credit.
This implies that in August alone, a total of 9 apps that were preying on common people have been shut down.
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