Watch Out for Fake Sora Apps

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There’s a lot to say about Sora, which is essentially OpenAI’s TikTok for AI. But putting aside my concerns about what appears to be a glorified deepfake machine, it’s clear that the app is popular. According to OpenAI, Sora reached one million downloads in less than five days, likely fueled by interest from users seeing hyper-realistic videos go viral on social media.

But with any hype comes a high risk of fraud. While OpenAI made Sora free to download, the app started out as invitation-only, which only built anticipation for users who wanted it. As such, these users could open the App Store, search for Sora, and download the first app that makes itself available, especially if they can start using it right away. This is exactly what happened in this case.

As reported by TechCrunch, more than a dozen fake Sora apps were made available on the iOS App Store after the launch of OpenAI’s real app. These applications were called “Sora” or “Sora 2”, the latter referring to the specific video model that powers these generations of hyper-realistic AI.

You might assume that the developers hastily uploaded these apps to the App Store in an attempt to attract traffic from users curious about Sora. And while that’s true, a number of these apps were already available on the App Store long before OpenAI announced the Sora app, some of which operated under different names. It’s unclear how many changed their names in this situation, but it’s evident that many changed their names shortly after Sora launched. TechCrunch reports that some apps have been available in the App Store since the beginning of the year, while others have been available since last year.

Apple’s App Store isn’t the only app marketplace affected here. Google’s Play Store has also hosted fraudulent Sora apps. Together, these apps have been downloaded more than 300,000 times, including more than 80,000 downloads after Sora’s official launch. Perhaps the most successful fake Sora app, “Sora 2 – AI Video Generator”, alone generated over 50,000 downloads once OpenAI released Sora. TechCrunch reports that these apps collectively made more than $160,000, all from apps pretending to be something else entirely.

Currently, most, but not all, of these apps have been removed from the app stores.

How to Spot Fake Apps on Your App Store

First of all, if the app you are trying to download is trendy and popular, like Sora, assume that developers will try to spoof it. Malicious developers want to trick users looking for an app into downloading theirs, whether to install malware on your device, steal your information, or make money by serving ads. If they know a million people are going to download an app, hosting a scam app is good business.

When browsing the App Store results page, pay close attention to the app name. Sure, the title might have “Sora” in it, but are there any weird, extraneous words added? “Sora 2 – AI Video Generator” isn’t the worst fake name I’ve ever seen, but the name of the app is Sora, not Sora 2. OpenAI probably wouldn’t add AI Video Generator to its own product name either: they probably know that the product speaks for itself and wouldn’t feel the need to clutter the name with extra details. Instead, the real title is “Sora by OpenAI”, likely intended both to distinguish itself from legitimate apps named Sora and to indicate that it is indeed created by OpenAI.

Speaking of which, you should always make sure that the application in question is distributed by the company that created it. If you’re trying to figure out which of the Sora apps in your app store is the real one, it’ll be the one that says it’s made by OpenAI. I’m not just talking about the title either. Tap the app and look at the developer name under the title. If this doesn’t exactly match the company developing the app, don’t download it.

You’ll also want to investigate the copy and images advertising the app here. Is everything well written and free of spelling and grammatical errors? Are the images high quality and reflect the experience of the app they are promoting? Don’t download something that looks slapped together: some scammers don’t care about the finer details.

Finally, make sure that the application in question is actually available on the platform you are using. Sora is currently only available on iOS, which means any app claiming to be Sora by OpenAI on the Play Store is a fraud. If you’re on Android, you’ll just have to wait for OpenAI to create the app for your platform.