APUS (Swift) is one of the fastest birds in the world, they never rest, and spend their entire life in flight – thus is the trademark of the APUS Group, developers of the APUS Launcher…among other products. Established in July 2014, the Beijing-based company already has 150 million Android users and is looking to never ‘rest’ by continuing their growth to 300 million users this year and has a lofty goal of obtaining 1 billion users in three years. Their APUS Launcher, which we did an in-depth review on earlier this month, is now adding an anti-phishing SMS Spam Blocker and reinforcing mobile security as smartphones are quickly becoming the targets of attackers looking to steal your private information.
I am not going into the details of the application itself, as you can read those in our in-depth review, but we need to mention the upgrade that includes the new anti-spam SMS filter. It is designed to prevent spam and more importantly, phishing attacks by including in the updated APUS Launcher, a new SMS notifications feature using APUS’s proprietary context-based algorithms. They can actually recognize spam and unsafe text messages that are phishing attempts and notify you.
According to APUS, security firm, Cloudmark, reported that SMS phishing is on the rise and that private bank account information is one of the most sought after types of information stolen via SMS (Secure Message Services). With more and more bank transactions being done via mobile banking, it is a natural place to look for and attack bank account information and passwords. An unsuspecting SMS message could have an embedded URL that may deliver malware, spyware or Trojans that will unsuspectingly attack and disseminate your private information. Li Tao, Founder and CEO of APUS Group said, “With 120 million users globally on APUS Launcher, ensuring the privacy and safety of our users APUS Group’s priority. Something as simple as receiving a text message shouldn’t have to be a cause for mobile security concerns. To combat the growing epidemic we’ve designed APUS Launcher’s new SMiShing filter to stop phishing attempts dead in its tracks before it ever reaches the intended recipient.”
While Android releases its own Operating System, most manufacturers add their own User Interface (UI) on top of Android. Some of the top designers, such as Samsung, HTC and LG have some sophisticated launchers, but many of the cheaper phones in emerging nations download a launcher like APUS to help reduce battery consumption and to jump quickly between their favorite apps. APUS is rapidly becoming one of the most-downloaded app launchers because it allows users many ways to customize their mobile device the way they want it to look and operate. It can run on any Android smartphone and takes up about one megabyte of memory. According to market researcher, App Annie, in just eleven short months, APUS Launcher has become the number 7 most popular app in Google Play. Pick it up HERE and give it a try.
