by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : Google has deleted 29 malicious “beauty camera” apps that were sharing pornographic content and forwarding users, particularly in India, to phishing websites to steal their information.
Some of these Android apps have been downloaded millions of times and a large number of the download counts originated from Asia — particularly in India, said a report from US-based cyber security firm Trend Micro.
The apps have now been removed by Google from the Play Store.
“A user downloading one of these apps will not immediately suspect that there is anything amiss, until they decide to delete the app,” said Trend Micro.
The app will push several full screen ads when users unlock their devices, including malicious ads (such as fraudulent content and pornography) that will pop up via the user’s browser.
“During our analysis, we found a paid online pornography player that was downloaded when clicking the pop up,” the report added.
None of these apps gave any indication that they were the ones behind the ads, thus users might find it difficult to determine where they’re coming from.
Some of these apps redirected to phishing websites that asked the user for personal information, such as addresses and phone numbers.
“For example, the package com.beauty.camera.project.cloud will create a shortcut after being launched. However, it will hide its icon from the application list, making it more difficult for users to uninstall the app since they will be unable to drag and delete it,” Trend Micro noted.
Furthermore, the camera apps used packers to prevent them from being analysed.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Markets, Online Marketing, SMEs, Technology
San Francisco : A group of iOS developers has called on Apple to commit to allowing free trials for all apps in the App Stores by July, while adding that it would eventually demand “reasonable revenue cut”.
Apple currently receives a 30 per cent cut of what revenue developers earn from the App Store, MacRumors reported on Friday.
The group, which calls themselves “The Developers Union”, detailed their demands in an open letter to the tech giant on Friday.
“We believe that people who create great software should be able to make a living doing it. So we created The Developers Union to advocate for sustainability in the App Store,” the letter read.
“Today, we are asking Apple to commit to allowing free trials for all apps in the App Stores by the tenth anniversary of the App Store this July. After that, we’ll start advocating for a more reasonable revenue cut and other community-driven, developer-friendly changes,” it said.
In its website, the Developers Union explained that free trials are a great place to start and gather the momentum needed to create significant change.
“Trials allow developers to show users their creation and establish value. Before iOS, Mac developers relied heavily on free trials, and they were able to make a living while making great software,” it added.
The group currently consists of 35 iOS developers, The Verge reported on Friday.
The App Store makes up a huge portion of Apple’s services business.
As such, without support from big names like Amazon and Spotify, it is not likely that the Developers Union will be able to make Apple concede on revenue elements of the App Store, the report added.
That division last year earned more revenue than AirPods, Apple TV, the Apple Watch, and iPad sales combined, it said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Investing, Markets, Medium Enterprise, Networking, Online Marketing, SMEs, Social Media, Technology
New Delhi : With the digital payment space growing manifold in India, Microsoft is soon enabling digital payments services in its enterprise social network app “Kaizala” in the country.
Payment integration — via third party mobile payment infrastructure — with “Kaizala” will enable users to quickly send or receive money without having to leave the Kaizala mobile application.
“Customers have been asking about adding the payment functionality in Kaizala to complete the work flow. We are going to very soon integrate digital payment facility in the app,” Rajiv Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Office Product Group, Microsoft India, told IANS.
“The integration will take care of payments from wallet to wallet, bank to bank, credit card to bank and vice versa. It is very much customer-driven and address all stakeholders in the value chain,” Kumar added.
With “Kaizala” which has over one million users in India, users will have the option to make peer to peer payments in one to one and group chat conversations.
Launched in July 2017, “Kaizala” is now also synced with Microsoft’s fast-selling desktop product Office 365.
“To help millions of first-line workers who are mobile-first in India, Office365 family now has applications like ‘Kaizala’. The integration will help the productivity landscape grow further in India while providing a seamless work flow across industries,” Rajesh Jha, Executive Vice President, Office Product Group at Microsoft, told IANS.
Upping the ante, Microsoft has brought in “Kaizala” and “Kaizala Pro” — mobile-first products to help businesses connect with people inside and outside the organisations, easily coordinate tasks across the value chain and gain actionable insights.
“Kaizala” comes at a time when businesses and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are becoming more dispersed in the country and connecting with teams and partners gets equally crucial, especially in areas with poor Internet connectivity.
It has seen significant adoption among YES Bank, Apollo Telemedicine, United Phosphorous Limited and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, among others.
At the government level, more than 30 departments with over 70,000 workers in the Andhra Pradesh government are using “Kaizala” for real-time governance and day-to-day work.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Economy, Emerging Businesses, Finance, Investing, Marketing Basics, Markets, Medium Enterprise, Networking, News, Online Marketing, SMEs, Social Media, Technology
New Delhi : At a time when bitcoins are in focus for all the wrong reasons, cryptocurrency dealer Pluto Exchange on Thursday announced the launch of India’s first mobile application for transacting in the virtual currency.
At a press conference here, Pluto Exchange Founder and Chief Executive Bharat Verma said that his company is all set to launch the country’s first app-based wallet that enables bitcoin transactions using a mobile number.
“The Pluto Exchange mobile app offers a solution to the coordination problem between payment processors, financial gateways and banks,” Verma said.
“All other apps already in the market do transactions using bitcoin addresses, which are long and prone to error while copying. Pluto Exchange will change this scenario by enabling transactions using mobile numbers only, which are just 10 digits,” he said.
Until now using a four-digit personal identification number (PIN), users could buy, sell, store and spend bitcoins via a mobile number, Verma added.
Elaborating, he said the app would permit a range of transactions, including payments, remittances, business-to-business commerce, supply chain finance, asset management and trading.
He also said that the Reserve Bank of India was concerned about the use of cash for dealing in virtual currencies, whose values have turned volatile of late.
“The RBI considers bitcoins as decentralised trading that is completely unregulated..so their status is not clear,” he said.
In India, there are at least 15 bitcoin exchange forums, with the majority being set up over the past two years.
Bitcoin values in New York, for instance, have soared nearly 1,600 per cent in 2016 and currently range upwards of $15,000.
In India, bitcoins have been trading at more than Rs 10 lakh each, while people are investing amounts ranging from Rs 3,000 to several lakhs to buy these.
According to investigation agencies here, with the demand and prices of cryptocurrencies on the rise, cyber criminals have found innovative ways to dupe investors.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Large Enterprise, Marketing Basics, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Technology
New Delhi : Homegrown messaging app Hike Messenger on Thursday announced that its Hike Wallet has crossed 10 million transactions per month, growing 100 per cent month-over-month.
Of the 10 million transactions, 70 per cent were on recharge and the remaining 30 per cent on peer-to-peer (P2P), the company said in a statement.
“On the back of this growth, we’ve launched an updated design to make it easier to discover and transact with services on Hike,” said Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger.
Hike is planning to add more services like cab bookings, bus, train, movie tickets and pay bills in the first quarter of 2018.
Launched in 2012, Hike has over 100 million users. Hike has over 350 employees at two offices in Delhi and Bengaluru.
—IANS
