The researchers of ESET have discovered over 80 malicious applications masquerading as mods for Minecraft, counting nearly millions of installations on the official app download store.
Some time ago Minecraft was associated with a scareware campaign, and again today, ESET researchers report another case of abuse of the popular application.
According to the official analysis on the ESET page Welivesecurity.com, there are 87 fake Minecraft mods on Google Play, which target players of this game who use the Android platform, harassing them with aggressive ads and scams. So far, about 990.000 users have installed these fake mods.
ESET researchers have divided the malicious activity associated with fake Minecraft mods into two main categories: downloaders, which display ads and are detected by ESET as Android / TrojanDownloader.Agent.JL, and fake applications, which redirect users on scam websites, and are detected by ESET as Android / FakeApp.FG.
As for Android / TrojanDownloader.Agent.JL, ESET reports 14 fake mods that are dressed in mods for Minecraft, having recorded up to 80.000 facilities. As these fake mods applications are only responsible for displaying aggressive ads, bad reviews are common.
Regarding Android/FakeApp.FG, ESET reports 73 cases of redirects to scam websites, counting 910.000 installations, between January and March 2017. Once installed, the apps display a screen with a download button. Clicking the button does not download any mods, instead the user is redirected to a web page that opens in a browser and displays all types of disturbing content.
"To avoid exscam"to protect yourself from fake apps and malware, always choose official app download stores," reminds users Closeš Štefanko, researcher Malware of ESET.
“Be especially careful when downloading apps from third-party manufacturers that offer additional features to existing apps. It also helps to check how popular an app is by install numbers, ratings and, most importantly, the content of the reviews – in the case of these apps, low ratings and angry comments should be a pretty good indicator. index finger of their unreliability".
Η complete analysis of fake mods for Minecraft on Google Play is available at WeLiveSecurity.com.
