The apps, which were found across countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, including India, Colombia, Nigeria and Mexico, purportedly offer quick, fully-digital loan approvals with reasonable loan terms. The research revealed 251 were Android and 35 iOS lending apps were downloaded a combined total of 15 million times.

In reality, they exploit victims’ desire for quick cash in an attempt to ensnare borrowers into predatory loan contracts and require them to grant access to sensitive information on their device such as contacts, phone history, and SMS messages — information that would not be required in a valid loan application process.

In addition to predatory requests for excessive permissions, many of the loan operators display scam-like actions. Victims have reported that their personal and installment loans came with hidden fees, high interest rates, and repayment terms that were much less favorable than what was posted on the app stores. Lookout Threat Lab also found evidence that the data exfiltrated from devices was sometimes used to pressure the customer for repayment – a common threat tactic to disclose a borrower’s debt or other personal information to their network of contacts.

“Mobile apps have made managing our lives a lot easier and are a convenient way to interact with businesses such as financial institutions. However, when entrusting any app with sensitive personal information, it is extremely important to stop and ask yourself if the information being requested makes sense and if the business behind the app is a trusted entity,” said Ruohan Xiong, senior security intelligence researcher, Lookout.

“As these predatory loan apps have demonstrated, app permissions could easily be abused if users are not careful. While there are likely dozens of independent operators involved, all of these loan apps have a very similar business model – to trick victims into unfair loan terms and then extort payment.”

Lookout informed Google and Apple about the discovery of these apps which were quickly removed from the respective stores.

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In early 2019, Lookout joined the BeyondCorp Alliance, a group of Google Cloud partners that share its Zero Trust vision. Lookout delivers essential requirements of the BeyondCorp security model, including device inventory, state and security posture. These are essential to making context-aware Zero Trust access decisions.

The customer benefits include The Lookout BeyondCorp Alliance Integration with Google Workspace and Google Cloud BeyondCorp Enterprise Solution to Deliver Zero Trust Security From Endpoint to Cloud.

For an organization to fully protect its data, it must assume that no endpoint is trustworthy until its security posture is verified. Failing to verify and continuously assess an endpoint’s security posture can lead to corporate data leaks and breaches.

“Our strategic partnership with Google Cloud will deliver industry-leading endpoint-to-cloud security,” said David Richardson, Vice President of Product, Lookout. “Enabling productivity from any endpoint in any location is critical in today’s remote-work environment. We are proud to deliver on the BeyondCorp mission to accelerate and simplify the adoption of a Zero Trust model that enables organizations to stay secure, agile and productive.”

“We’re committed to providing customers with the technology, support, and partner solutions they need to ensure they have choice when it comes to security,” said Manvinder Singh, Director of Technology Partnerships at Google Cloud. “We’re delighted that Lookout will expand its integrations with Google Cloud and make its Mobile Endpoint Security solution available on Google Cloud Marketplace, bringing customers additional choice and security capabilities as they expand their cloud footprints.”

The Lookout and Google relationship began in 2008 when Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security became available on the Google Play store. In 2019, Lookout became a member of the Google App Defense Alliance to protect users from potentially harmful applications by stopping them before they ever make it onto the Google Play Store.

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