If you received a new Alexa device over the holidays and are working on setting it up, be warned that a fake Alexa setup app has been making its way up Apple’s App Store charts. The app is called “Setup for Amazon Alexa” and it’s from a company called One World Software that, as 9to5Mac points out, has two other shady apps in the App Store as well. As of writing, the app was ranked at #75 in the “Top Free” apps list and #6 in the list of top utilities apps.
This is, frankly, one of my biggest fears on mobile platforms. For example, when I opened a new account with a bank recently, there were several apps that came up in the Google Play store when I searched for my bank’s app.
None of the other apps were scams (I think), but rather they had names similar to my bank. But it wouldn’t be difficult to fool users with similarly named apps as this fake Alexa app illustrates.