Senator Sherrod Brown, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, has
penned letters to the CEOs of Google’s parent company Alphabet and Apple
calling for the tech firms to provide information on the ways they
prevent certain apps from promoting crypto scams.
According to the letters published on Thursday, Brown asked
Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai for the steps the
tech giants were taking in the approval of crypto apps on Apple and
Android devices. The senator requested information related to how the
companies assessed if apps were “trusted and secure,” prevented possible
phishing apps through fraudulent apps and reported such apps to users.
“Cyber
criminals have stolen company logos, names, and other identifying
information of crypto firms and then created fake mobile apps to trick
unsuspecting investors into believing they are conducting business with a
legitimate crypto firm,” said Brown. “While firms that offer crypto
investment and other related services should take the necessary steps to
prevent fraudulent activity, including warning investors about the
uptick in scams, it is likewise imperative that app stores have the
proper safeguards in place to prevent against fraudulent mobile
application activity.”
Brown’s letters came following the Federal Bureau of Investigation issuing a public warning
about fraudulent cryptocurrency apps on July 18. The bureau reported
that scammers had pilfered more than $42 million from 244 people between
October 2021 and May 2022, including a case in which an app used the
name of a former legitimate crypto exchange.
Speaking at a
Thursday hearing with the Senate Banking Committee on "Understanding
Scams and Risks in Crypto and Securities Markets," Brown seemed to place some of the burden of addressing crypto scams on platforms and apps on lawmakers and regulators rather than companies:
“We
hear industry players call for rules of the road when a big fraud is
uncovered, and after a big actor has knowingly violated the law. The
rules are there, the roadmap is clear, and [the Senate Banking
Committee] needs to make sure our regulators enforce the law and protect
the workers and families that keep this economy rolling [...] Industry
shouldn’t be allowed to write the rules that they want to play by.”
Gerri Walsh, the president of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation, said in written testimony for the hearing that some of the $57 million in fines the financial regulator had charged trading app Robinhood
in June 2021 would be used toward educating crypto investors, including
those using online accounts or mobile apps. Walsh also pointed to
scammers using dating and messaging apps to convince victims to send
funds or invest in fraudulent crypto platforms and said misinformation
on social media was a major factor in the propagation of such scams in
response to a question on Instagram posts.
Related: 4 clever crypto scams to beware — Dubai OTC trader Amin Rad
The Federal Trade Commission reported in June that roughly 46,000 people in the United States had lost up to $1 billion in crypto
to scams in 2021. The commission said at the time that roughly half of
all the crypto-related scams originated from social media platforms
through ads, posts and messages.
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-lawmaker-calls-for-apple-and-google-to-provide-info-on-fake-crypto-apps
