WIRED found hundreds of apps on Google Play and Apple's App Store that presented themselves as ordinary tools, such as pet photo editors, language tutors and workout coaches, and hid explicit deepfake tools behind them, according to a Digital Trends report on the investigation published November 2, 2026. Researchers from AI Forensics identified a wider network of more than 400 connected apps and domains, the report says; they are described as the source of that figure, which is a researcher claim.

How the apps are reported to have worked

On installation, an app sends details to a server, including the user's location, language, a device identifier and how the user found the app, according to the report. The server decides whether to show the harmless app or a hidden web interface. Researchers say one trigger is installing the app after clicking an ad on Facebook or Instagram. The hidden layer offers explicit deepfake templates into which users upload real photos, and users buy digital currency to generate the images. Some apps accepted payments through Apple Pay and Google Pay, and the listings were rated for all ages and carried no warning. The report does not include a response from either payment provider.

The network reportedly spread through deceptive ads on Meta's platforms, some of which used false business names and accounts with no followers. Similar ads kept reappearing while WIRED was finishing its investigation.

Attribution and company actions

WIRED traced much of the network to Chinese developers and to a Hong Kong entity, KeLing Technology Limited, according to Digital Trends, which does not independently verify the attribution. KeLing scrubbed its online presence after WIRED contacted it, the report says.

Google removed one popular app with more than 100,000 downloads. Apple removed 19 apps, including the pet-portrait app Viefur, and told WIRED, in paraphrase, that the apps complied with App Store rules during review but that developers later changed their behavior. Apple recently updated its rules against nudifying and bait-and-switch apps, the report says. Meta said it banned KeLing from advertising in 2025 and has since acted against 11,600 ad accounts and 5,200 users and blocked 209 apps tied to the scheme. These figures are the companies' own. The EU's ban on nudifier apps takes effect about one month after the report's publication, according to Digital Trends.

Sources and notes

Source: Digital Trends (Manisha Priyadarshini, November 2), reporting on WIRED's investigation. Lens did not read WIRED's original article, and Digital Trends names no individual researchers and includes no direct quotations. The counts of apps, the server-side switching and the ad triggers are claims by researchers or by WIRED's investigation. Other outlets' summaries give different counts, including a roundup that cites about 350,000 downloads, and one outlet's description of the network as Chinese-linked; Lens has not used those figures.

Image: Cycling apps on mobile phone.jpg by Alextredz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped. It shows a phone with a folder of cycling apps held during a bike ride; the apps shown are unrelated to those in the investigation. Illustrative photo; it does not show the events described.