Security News > 2023 > February > Beware rogue 2FA apps in App Store and Google Play – don’t get hacked!
On Android, Google offers its own authenticator app, unsurprisingly called Google Authenticator, that you can get from Google Play.
Google's add-on app does the job of generating the needed one-time login code sequences, just like Apple's Settings > Passwords utility on iOS. But we're going to assume that at least some people, and possibly many, will perfectly reasonably have asked themselves, "What other authenticator apps are out there, so I don't have to put all my cybersecurity eggs into Apple's basket?".
You can find an extensive, and tempting, range of authenticators just by searching for Authenticator app in Google Play or the App Store.
We analysed several authenticator apps after Twitter had stopped the SMS method for 2FA. We saw many scam apps looking almost the same.
If you were forced into paying a subscription for it; if the app is littered with ads; if the app comes with larger-than-life marketing and glowing reviews yet comes from a company you've never heard of; or if you're simply having second thoughts, and something doesn't feel right about it.
As mentioned above, Apple has a built-in 2FA code generator in Settings > Passwords, and Google has its own Google Authenticator app in the Play Store.