Apps Hide Sexual Deepfake Network Behind Benign Store Listings
WIRED reports that Viefur, presented as a pet-portrait app, was part of a network of more than 400 connected apps and domains that secretly loaded interfaces for generating explicit AI sexual images and videos from uploaded photos. Researchers traced the network through thousands of Facebook and Instagram video ads, some of which contained AI-generated child sexual abuse material, while Apple, Google, and Meta removed deceptive listings, ads, and advertising accounts.
The investigation exposes how an organized commercial operation used ordinary app-store listings and social ads to distribute sexually abusive deepfake tools at substantial scale, despite platform policies prohibiting harmful content.
At first glance, the self-proclaimed “pet portrait” app Viefur appears to be just another AI slop generator. Using digital coins sold in the app—around $4 will buy 130 coins—pet photos can be turned into an “anthropomorphic portrait,” with the critter dressed in “human clothing” and inserted into bizarre scenes. Think a hamster wearing beach shorts, sunglasses, and lounging in a swimming pool or a Hawaiian shirt-wearing cat, drinking from a coconut.
All of this is cover for what appears to be the app’s true purpose: creating sexually abusive deepfake images.
A WIRED investigation found the app is part of a network of more than 400 connected domains and apps that, like Viefur, often claim to be everyday services—such as language tuition or AI workout coaches. When accessed under certain conditions, however, apps in the network stealthily load a web interface allowing the generation of explicit AI sexual images and videos using photos users upload. The apps include AI scenes such as “bedroom rape” and “threatening knife,” where a man holds a knife to a woman’s neck.
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