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The apps are deemed malicious by doing things such as capturing pictures and audio when the app is closed, or making an unusually large amount of network calls. These allow apps to access a range of information from Facebook profiles, like name, location and email address.
Trustlook discovered the malicious apps using a formula, which created a risk score for apps based on more than 80 pieces of information for each app, including permissions, libraries, risky API calls and network activity.
"The Cambridge Analytica data-harvesting scandal was mainly a result of developers abusing the permissions associated with the Facebook Login feature," Trustlook researchers said, in a post. "When people use Facebook Login, they grant the app's developer a range of information from their Facebook profile. Back in 2015, Facebook also allowed developers to collect some information from the friend networks of people who used Facebook Login. That means that while a single user may have agreed to hand over their data, developers could also access some data about their friends. Needless to say, this realization among Facebook users has caused a huge backlash."
Source: https://threatpost.com/tens-of-thousands-of-malicious-apps-using-facebook-apis/131566/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:56PM
I agree, what backlash. Less that 1% snap out of their Matrix-pod and its "big news". We need 30%, 60% or more to make a difference. The time to wake up was 10 to 15 years ago. Now we need a revolution to throw off the yoke we so comfortably slipped into.