Three iPhone owners say a fake Sparrow Wallet app on the App Store led to $1.8 million in Bitcoin being stolen, and they’re suing Apple.
(via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)
Joe Rossignol (PDF):
The complaint alleges that Apple violated California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act and other laws by failing to adequately review and monitor apps distributed through the App Store, despite marketing it as “a safe and trusted place to discover and download apps.” Due to these assurances in Apple’s marketing, the complaint said the plaintiffs trusted that a Sparrow Wallet app they downloaded from the App Store on iOS was legitimate, when in reality it was a fraudulent spoof designed to steal Bitcoin from users.
Sparrow Wallet is only available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The popular Bitcoin wallet is not available on iOS, but scammers have released fake lookalike apps in the App Store that can trick users into giving up control of their funds.
[…]
Even when victims reported fraud, the lawsuit alleges that Apple often took little to no action, and it says other fake Sparrow apps remain in the App Store.
Sparrow Wallet developer Craig Raw has publicly addressed Apple’s slow response to multiple fake versions of his app appearing in the App Store. In a January 2024 social media post, for example, he said “there is still a scam ‘Sparrow Wallet’ app on the @Apple App Store, despite myself and others having reported it weeks ago.”
My attempt to protect users from scam apps on the @AppStore has gotten my Apple Developer account flagged for termination - ironically, for “dishonest activity”.
[…]
I’m the developer of the real Sparrow Wallet, a desktop app, and I hold the registered US trademarks for the name and logo. I have publicly warned @Apple and the community about these fake apps from early 2024, but they keep appearing.
The app @Apple flagged was a placeholder that was never published. Its only purpose was to warn users that Sparrow is desktop-only and that other “Sparrow” apps aren’t mine. This approach may have been misguided, but there was nothing dishonest about it.
In response to our request for comment, Apple said it has taken swift action to remove any apps impersonating Sparrow Wallet[…] Apple says it takes immediate action against apps that do not comply with its guidelines.
Previously:
Update (2026-07-28): Sarah Perez:
The complaint targets one of Apple’s longtime competitive arguments: that its tight control over its App Store makes its platform safer than those offered by its rivals. The company has used this claim to push back against deregulation of the app ecosystem, including third-party app stores and sideloading.
“As part of a sustained marketing campaign, Apple has positioned itself, its products and services, as offering a level of security and trustworthiness superior to any competing technology company,” the new filing states. “This includes assurances about the safety of applications distributed through its App Store. By retaining exclusive control over which apps are permitted on Apple devices, Apple has structured its platform to ensure that consumers depend entirely on its promise of safety and reliability,” it reads.
With third-party app stores, there would be an incentive to do better vetting than Apple, and with sideloading it would be clear that the app was not being downloaded from sparrowwallet.com.
Update (2026-07-29): Jeff Johnson:
What struck me about Apple’s response is that it places the burden of curating the App Store on developers and users rather than taking responsibility for it. After all, Apple reviews every version of every app before it can be published to the App Store. If Apple is curating the App Store, then why do scams have to be reported and removed? One wonders how the scams get past Apple review in the first place, and even if Apple review “is not perfect” (a gross euphemism), how the second line of defense, Apple employees patrolling the App Store for scams that the review team missed, also fails. The burden of App Store curation should not fall to me, a lone indie developer.
Apple’s response also ignores that the indie developer did report the scams, multiple times.
Previously:
President Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump, cofounded a crypto mining venture called American Bitcoin Corp last year — and it’s already in deep trouble.
As the Bitcoin community reels from a major downturn — the digital currency has plummeted by over 40 percent year to date — the company’s shares have plummeted right along with it, crashing over a whopping 95 percent compared to their peak.
On Wednesday, its stock price hit an all-time low of well under $6, down from a high of $140 last autumn.
That means Eric Trump’s six percent stake in the company has lost more than $600 million in market value, per Bloomberg‘s calculations, a bruising crypto play that perfectly illustrates the enormous risks of going all-in on extremely volatile digital assets.
After merging with an existing mining company, the company made the questionable decision last year to pivot from building data centers — an extremely lucrative industry that has seen massive interest as of late — to crypto mining, a gambling-like practice that’s far from guaranteed to make a profit.
Since then, the crypto world has had a rude awakening. As prices plunged, the industry made a sharp turn towards leasing all of that hardware to AI companies instead of mining Bitcoin.
However, American Bitcoin stuck to its guns, ultimately going down with the ship. Most of its assets are tied up in crypto-mining hardware and Bitcoin holdings, meaning it didn’t really have anywhere to run.
Eric Trump, meanwhile, is doubling down.
“Thrilled to announce American Bitcoin crossing the 8,000 BTC mark!” he gloated in a July 7 tweet. “The stacking continues.”
He also argued that it would be “beyond catastrophic” to sell its holdings during a recent podcast episode.
Despite Trump’s enthusiasm, American Bitcoin lost well over $100 million in the first quarter of this year. Whether the tide will turn and crypto will see another rise in value is ultimately a question of belief.
“Just hold on guys, just hold,” Eric Trump warned during this year’s Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas.
The elder Trump appears to have fared far better, reporting last week that he had made more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures in 2025 — an astronomical conflict of interest, considering we’re talking about the president of the United States.
More on Trump and crypto: Trump Fans Confused by How Their Investments in His Crypto and Stock Are Now Worth a Tiny Fraction While He’s Getting Richer
The post Eric Trump Has Lost $600 Million of Daddy’s Money Betting on Crypto appeared first on Futurism.
Microsoft says it has detected new self-propagating malware that spreads through USB drives in search of cryptocurrency credentials, which it then sends to attacker-controlled servers.
The company named the worm Crypto Clipper because it monitors the contents of device clipboards for patterns consistent with wallet addresses or seed phrases. When found, the malware also takes five screenshots over a 10-second period. Both the credentials and the screenshots are then sent to the attacker through Tor, a network protocol that provides anonymous routing by sending traffic through redundant nodes so logs can’t capture both the sending and receiving IP addresses. Crypto Clipper establishes the Tor connection by using a SOCKS5 proxy, a network protocol that sends traffic through a proxy server, which then forwards it to its final destination.
“The execution of this clipper is notable because it does not depend on a traditional installer or exposed IP-based C2 infrastructure,” Microsoft said Thursday. “Instead, it deploys a portable Tor client, routes traffic through a local SOCKS5 proxy, and blends data theft with remote code execution, turning a financially motivated stealer into a lightweight backdoor.”
© Getty Images
Microsoft says it has detected new self-propagating malware that spreads through USB drives in search of cryptocurrency credentials, which it then sends to attacker-controlled servers.
The company named the worm Crypto Clipper because it monitors the contents of device clipboards for patterns consistent with wallet addresses or seed phrases. When found, the malware also takes five screenshots over a 10-second period. Both the credentials and the screenshots are then sent to the attacker through Tor, a network protocol that provides anonymous routing by sending traffic through redundant nodes so logs can’t capture both the sending and receiving IP addresses. Crypto Clipper establishes the Tor connection by using a SOCKS5 proxy, a network protocol that sends traffic through a proxy server, which then forwards it to its final destination.
“The execution of this clipper is notable because it does not depend on a traditional installer or exposed IP-based C2 infrastructure,” Microsoft said Thursday. “Instead, it deploys a portable Tor client, routes traffic through a local SOCKS5 proxy, and blends data theft with remote code execution, turning a financially motivated stealer into a lightweight backdoor.”
© Getty Images
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