Millions of gamers are tricked into downloading fake Minecraft Android apps that run ads in the background, making a huge profit for developers.
McAfee cybersecurity researchers recently discovered (opens in new tab) 38 Game Posing (opens in new tab) Like Minecraft on the Android platform, it runs ads in the background without the user’s knowledge or consent.
Out of 38 games, the most popular games are Block Box Master Diamond (10 million downloads), Craft Sword Mini Fun (5 million), Block Box Skyland Sword (5 million) and Craft Monster Crazy Sword (5 million) .
Game plays as advertised
Block Pro Forest Diamond, Block Games Skyland Forest, Block Rainbow Sword Dragon, Craft Rainbow Mini Builder, and Block Forest Tree Crazy have all been downloaded 1 million times each. All of them can be found in the Google Play Store. I didn’t find it in any third party or obscure repositories.
Researchers say there’s no real way for users to know they’re getting ads, other than the phone overheating or running slower than expected. However, even these he two symptoms can be canceled as normal behavior when running mobile games. To make matters worse, the apps all work as advertised, but users actually play the games.
Most victims lived in either the United States or China, researchers say. Brazil, Iran, the United Kingdom and Germany were also heavy victims.
Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world today. This is a sandbox his game where the player can collect resources and create his own environment. The game has his two modes. Survival mode, where the player needs to gather resources, build the world, and survive hostile mobs, and Creative mode, where the player gets all the resources they need to build anything they can imagine.
Minecraft is now the best-selling video game of all time with 238 million copies sold. According to ActivePlayer, he has over 170 million monthly active players.
Via: BleepingComputer (opens in new tab)
