Apple Shuts Down The App That Lets Android Users Send Fake iMessage

Apple has always boasted of being a highly secure and well-knitted community for its consumers. While most of it is true, there is one thing that has escaped the eye or has been ignored effectively by the Cupertino giant till now. Beeper Mini was launched in 2021 as a singular messaging platform to send end-to-end encrypted messages to any application. The app’s unique proposition is the one that created controversy around Apple’s security claims. Finally, Apple has blocked the app, effectively shutting it down from all its servers.

Why did this happen?

Beeper Mini has been bypassing Apple’s servers for over 3 years now to send genuine-looking fake iMessages to any iPhone or Apple device. That is why this app has gained such popularity among 100k+ Android users. It simply created a loophole that convinced Apple servers that an original iPhone user was sending the text. But the truth is that almost every message sent with the iPhone’s verification blue tick was from an Android phone. Apple has successfully blocked the app from accessing any of its servers, which has led to the app shutting down, as most of its users used it to fake an original iMessage. 

At Apple, we build our products and services with industry-leading privacy and security technologies designed to give users control of their data and keep personal information safe. We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials to gain access to iMessage. These techniques posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks. We will continue to make updates in the future to protect our users.

- Nadin Haija (Apple’s Senior PR Manager)

The fact that a third-party app bypassed Apple’s highly secure servers for over 3 years put a big question mark on its security capabilities. Meanwhile, Apple is preparing for the official unveiling of Vision Pro at full speed. The first-of-its-kind product is expected to launch early next year. The company plans to call all its retail employees to the Cupertino branch for training on product sales. The usage and understanding of the product is supposedly quite complex and requires proper training for the sales team to sell the product while ensuring all safety measures are in place.

Chinese search engine giant Baidu recently filed lawsuits against Apple Inc and relevant app developers over fake copies of its Ernie bot app on Apple’s app store.  Baidu's Ernie bot is an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot launched last month and is touted as China's clos