The pressure is mounting on smartphone owners to some form of anti-virus or malware protection, but even if you feel it’s necessary. how certain are you that your choice of AV is the genuine deal? According to Kaspersky Lab, there has been an increase of fake apps posing as anti-virus – which can cause more damage than good.

The company explained that they have detected at least two apps that imitate Kaspersky Lab’s mobile application – both of which were detected in official app stores.

The fake app discovered in the Windows Phone Store went by the name of Kaspersky Mobile, and since no such app exists in the company’s vast portfolio, Kaspersky is of the opinion that the creators were betting on users not noticing the discrepancy.

“Another interesting feature of this particular app was the fact that users had to pay for it. This meant its creators immediately started making money without having to devise additional scams such as demanding payments to remove “malware” that had supposedly been detected on users’ computers,” Kaspersky said in a press statement.

The second fake anti-virus app was found in the Google Play store as a paid app, and was titled Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2014. The company stressed that there is no such product in their portfolio, and the screenshot of the application as simply copied from the official Kaspersky Internet Security for Android page.

As with most fake apps, this one did absolutely nothing, only showing a random series of statements appearing on top of an “official” logo.

“The story of paid fake AV for mobiles started with the appearance of Virus Shield in the Google Play store. Now we are seeing how one successful scam spawns numerous clones. Scammers who want to make a quick buck from inattentive users are selling dozens of fake apps, copying the design, but not the functionality of the original,” commented Roman Unuchek, Senior Malware Analyst at Kaspersky Lab.

“It is quite possible that more and more of these fake apps will start appearing.”