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SciTech

Fake ‘Angry Birds,’ games threaten Android users


Android users, be very careful: a new batch of malicious apps posing as popular games – including the massively popular “Angry Birds” – has invaded the Android Market.
 
Computer security firm Avast said the apps, published by developer Miriada Production, may send expensive SMS messages to premium numbers, at the users’ expense.
 
In a blog post, Avast said Google removed these malicious apps from the Android Market, but only after it alerted it to their presence.
 
Yet it said this was not the first time a batch of malicious apps managed to enter the Android Market.
 
“Apps published by the developer Miriada Production may look like well known Android games (Angry Birds, Need for Speed, World of Goo and others) and users could be easily confused,” it noted.
 
Worse, Avast said if someone tried to look for “Cut the rope free,” one of the malicious applications was in the fourth place in the search results.
 
It added that while there are many signals that an app like this is a fraud – such as asking permission to send an SMS, less experienced users may not be able to see this as clearly.
 
Downloading package
 
Avast said the malicious app, once installed, starts to download a package from a remote server.
 
While the package contains a real game, the app is sending a SMS to a premium rate number.
 
“One interesting facet is that there is a different number for many countries in Europe, so it does not target Russian only. For example, within the Czech Republic, the SMS is sent to number 9090199 which charges about €4. In other countries, the amount charged is usually a bit less,” it said.
 
The app distinguishes between these countries based on their ISO and nearly 20 individual countries are affected – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, France, United Kingdom, Georgia, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Latvia, Poland, Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uganda.
 
Avast detects this kind of malware as Android:RuFraud and users of avast! Free mobile security are already protected, it said. — RSJ, GMA News
Tags: angrybirds
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