Hundreds of Everyday AI Apps Hid a Sexual Deepfake Maker, WIRED Finds
Apps posing as pet-photo, language and workout tools switched on a hidden deepfake maker for some users. Apple pulled 19 after WIRED asked.
A pet-portrait app that dresses your hamster in beach shorts was really a front. Viefur belonged to a network of more than 400 apps and websites that look like everyday AI tools but can switch on a hidden feature for making sexual deepfakes of real people, WIRED reported on Monday.
Researchers found the network by following links in thousands of explicit deepfake adverts on Facebook and Instagram, according to the WIRED investigation. The ads sent people to apps in Apple’s and Google’s stores.
How the trick worked
The apps posed as language tutors, workout coaches and photo editors. Once installed, each one quietly asked a server what to show. The server checked details such as where the user had come from and their language, then chose between the harmless app and a hidden web page of explicit templates.
Paul Bouchaud, a lead researcher at the nonprofit AI Forensics, took the code apart. One trigger appeared to be installing an app after clicking an advert on Meta’s platforms. The hidden page let users upload photos of anyone and place them in sexual and violent scenes. These are often called “nudify” tools. People paid with in-app “diamonds”, through Apple Pay and Google Pay.
“This is an organized, commercially run operation,” Bouchaud told WIRED. “They don’t expect enforcement to catch up, and so far it hasn’t.”
The numbers
Bouchaud counted 27 of the apps live on Google Play in September, downloaded more than 350,000 times between them. Many were rated suitable for all ages. One, DiffAI, passed 100,000 downloads before it was pulled. At the peak, about 30 new app websites were being registered each week. Maël Le Touz of the security firm Infoblox linked almost 500 domains.
The trail leads to Chinese-language developers and a Hong Kong company, KeLing Technology Limited. It did not reply to WIRED.
What the platforms said
Apple removed 19 apps, Viefur among them, after WIRED got in touch. “These apps complied with our rules when we reviewed them,” said Apple spokesperson Adam Dema. He said the developers later swapped the content the apps loaded. Google had already removed most of the apps and did not comment.
Meta said it banned KeLing from advertising in 2025. It has now acted against 11,600 ad accounts and blocked 209 apps from advertising. Even so, similar ads and apps were still appearing as WIRED finished its reporting.
Why it matters
A store listing and an age rating told parents nothing here, because the app Apple and Google approved was not the app some users received. Regulators are already looking hard at AI products that reach children, as Australia showed last week, and app review that stops at approval day is now part of that problem.
