META sent a warning to one million Facebook users on Friday

META sent a warning to a million Facebook users on Friday, informing them that they had been “exposed” to seemingly innocent smartphone applications that were really spying on their Facebook passwords.

According to Director of Threat Disruption David Agranovich, Meta has so far this year detected more than 400 “malicious” applications designed for cellphones running Apple or Android operating systems and accessible via the Apple and Google app stores.

The applications are “fun or helpful” services including picture editors, camera apps, VPN services, horoscope apps, and fitness monitoring tools, the business claims. Before accessing the advertised functionality, the applications frequently ask users to “Log In with Facebook.” However, these login options are only a way for hackers to access Facebook users’ account information. David Agranovich, Director of Threat Disruption at Meta, also pointed out that a lot of the apps the company detected were hardly functioning.

Apple and Google, who each oversee what is sold in their respective app stores and each vet offerings, were informed of what Meta had learned, according to Meta. Only 45 of the 400 programs mentioned by Meta were on Apple’s operating system, according to Agence France-Presse, and the firm has already taken them off of its app store.

The majority of the apps that Meta highlighted had already been found and taken down from the Play store, according to Google.

“These apps were listed on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store and were disguised as photo editors, games, VPN services, business apps, and other utilities to trick people into downloading them,” Meta said in a blog post.

“They are just trying to trick people into entering their login information in a way that enables hackers to access their accounts,” Agranovich said of the apps.

whether it took any action against the programs Meta considered harmful, Apple did not react to inquiries.