Fake Heart Rate Scanner App Slipped Into Apple’s App Store

Want to be able to measure your heart rate using your iPhone? There are apps out there such as Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor that relies on the camera and flash to try and measure your heart rate. But could your heart rate be read by placing your finger on the Touch ID fingerprint scanner? That’s what a scam app tried to convince users to do.

It was recently revealed that a fake heart rate scanner app had made its way past Apple’s App Store review process and was listed in the store, where it was apparently charging customers a whopping $90 for it. Now for the most part no one would pay that much for an unproven app upfront, so what it did was that it offered to read your heart rate and asked users to place their fingers on the Touch ID sensor.

From there the app would flash and dim the screen’s brightness as if it were actually doing something, when in reality it launched a request to make an in-app purchase for $90 and if the user’s finger had been on Touch ID and it was the same finger used for authentication, then the purchase would have gone through.

The app has since been removed, although as many have pointed out, how it made it past Apple’s review process is anyone’s guess. To Apple’s credit, fake/scam apps aren’t particularly rampant on the App Store, but at the same time to have potentially hundreds of customers cheated out of $100 each in a short amount of time probably won’t sit well with many.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: Apps, iOS