400 harmless-looking apps were hiding deepfake tools. Here’s how to check your kids’ phones tonight.

November 9, 2026

By Kim Komando

The app looks totally innocent. An AI workout coach. A language tutor. A cute app that puts little outfits on your pet photos.

Then the switch flips.

A Wired investigation found more than 400 linked apps and websites, traced to a single Chinese organization, that hid a dark second life. After passing Apple and Google review, a setting on the developer’s server could unlock tools that turn any uploaded photo into sexual or violent deepfakes. Users bought credits to make them.

Here’s what you need to know.

🕵️ How they got past the gatekeepers

• They looked clean the day they were reviewed. The bad stuff turned on later.
• Some had been live for about a year.
• Many users found them through deepfake ads on Facebook and Instagram.
• Apple pulled 19 apps after Wired shared details. Meta acted against more than 10,000 linked ad accounts.

(Both app stores ban this stuff. Didn’t matter.)

Now the scary part. These tools aren’t only used on celebrities. Wired has documented deepfake nude cases in at least 90 schools, usually teen boys targeting female classmates. A survey by the child-safety group Thorn found 1 in 10 teens personally knows someone who was targeted.

All it takes is one photo from a public profile.

🔒 Lock it down

• Turn on app approvals. On iPhone, go to Settings > your name > Family > tap your child > Ask to Buy. On Android, open Google Family Link > your child > Controls > Google Play and require approval.
• Do a phone check tonight. Wired didn’t publish the full list, and most of the apps are already gone from the stores. But one it named is Viefur, a pet-portrait app. Look for AI photo, face swap or “photo enhancer” apps you don’t recognize, especially ones that sell coins or credits. Ask what they do. Delete anything sketchy.
• Check subscriptions. These apps sell credits. Look for mystery charges under Settings > your name > Subscriptions or in Google Play > Payments & subscriptions.
• Make social accounts private. Fewer public photos means there’s less to steal.
• Have the talk. Posting a fake nude of someone is a federal crime under the TAKE IT DOWN Act. It’s not a prank, and kids need to hear that.

If it happens to your child, don’t share the image and don’t blame them. Use the free Take It Down tool from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at TakeItDown.NCMEC.org. Adults can go to StopNCII.org. Since May, platforms must remove reported images within 48 hours.

Your kids should never feel alone with this. Make sure they know they can come to you.

🗣️ Text/post this stat: More than 400 apps disguised as workout coaches and pet-photo editors were secretly deepfake tools, and they passed Apple and Google review. Get smarter at GetKim.com.