pic : minicraft.com
A trojanised app version of “Minecraft – Pocket Edition” has been in the wild tricking infected users by sending SMS messages to premium rate services.
As per F-Secure researchers, the purpose of the fraudster is to generate revenue sending text to various services for which users would have never purchased. Lately in the Google Android store some of the most played games like “Plants vs Zombies”, “Instagram” and “Angry Birds” have been victim of such infections. As per F-Secure this app is more prevalent in Russia.
PC Mag reports that “the trojaned build of Minecraft: Pocket Edition is being sold for €2.50, while the official build is selling for €5.40”
“The real game is included but it has one added permission: android.permission.SEND_SMS and the payment system has been ‘enhanced,'” said F-Secure. This critical change on the app is meant the app is coded to use victims’ phones to send text messages.
“According to F-Secure, the SMS message generated by the app are sent to so-called “premium rate numbers” in Russia. These might be signing up victims for pricey subscriptions to services they don’t want. The messages might also be adding money to their phone bill—like those fundraiser shortcodes used by NPR and the Red Cross, but in this case used for evil. Interestingly, whoever made the fake app might not own the numbers the messages are being sent to, but may get a cut from whoever does.” – says pcword
Users need to be aware of this and make careful judgement s while downloading this app.
