In general, Apple does a far better job at policing apps than say Android, however it is the effort from folks like yourself who help the Mac community with awareness around these issues and keep on Apple to do the right thing. It is appreciated and thank you.

Thanks!

We'd never expect anyone to be perfect, but we do hope that this prompts Apple to make it easier for researchers to report issues directly to the App Store team.

For a non-App store app, I always use VirusTotal website to check both the website and the downloaded DMG file in downloads before installing. When I “buy” an app from the App Store, is it possible to check the downloaded file before the installer installs it? Where is it?

And I run Malwarebytes on all my Macs and my iPhone. Great products?

Thanks,

Rick

There's no way of checking an App Store app with VirusTotal, or anything else like that, before buying/downloading. However, note that "installing" an App Store app doesn't actually do anything other than download it. You could always download, then check it out before running it.

Keep in mind, though, VirusTotal would not have had anything concerning to say about these apps before this research was made public, and will not identify a number of other apps that do scammy things, and that Malwarebytes will detect.

Thanks for this. Malwarebytes just found and deleted the threat from Dr Cleaner.

And because of that same problem, I uninstalled Dr. Cleaner and switched to another App that does a better job. As well as keeping Malwarebytes.

Do not use so-called "cleaning" apps. They serve no useful purpose on a modern system, and do more harm than good. The use of a "cleaning" app can cover up a bigger problem, by slightly improving the symptoms without treating the cause.

What do you recommend? Just using Malwarebytes on a regular basis? I can go with that.

Clean My Mac. But, maybe not so much now.

Thomas Reed,

Apple might improve its policing or perhaps even remove the problematic apps, which partake in data extrafiltrating if enough users report serious concerns about data theft and privacy breaches.

My last scan detected a threat:
PUP.BrowserHistoryStealer
/Applications/DrCleaner.app

I now have uninstalled the app on all my macs, have reported the issue to Apple as per your aforementioned suggestion, and will exhort others to do the same. I will also thread carefully from hereon when downloading from the App Store. Thank you so much for bringing this issue to our attention.

Malwarebytes on Mac detected:

PUP.MPlayerX : /Users/~/Library/Preferences/org.niltsh.MPlayerX.plist

PUP.BrowserHistoryStealer : /Applications/DrUnarchiver.app

Thank you. Besides "Open Any Files" Malwarebytes also detected "Dr. Unarchiver".