Rising Threat: Banking Trojans Disguised as Popular Minecraft Games

Banking Trojans disguised as games

Malware in the Play Store is unfortunately nothing sensational, although this campaign, according to the Czech branch of ESET, is quite unusual. Criminals chose games as a carrier of malware, and not just any games. Namely, it is supposedly about one category; titles imitating the popular “Minecraft”. In addition, it is more veiled than it might seem at first.

“Block Sun Earth” is one of such clones, created by Trending Games Global. But despite the huge amount of advertising, this production is completely harmless. However, they are a threat applications placed under the same name by other developersfound, among others, Hiddad and Andreed Trojans.

The youngest are at risk

ESET notes that the matter is serious, as mobile games often reach relatively young, and thus potentially unaware of the threats, recipients. At the same time, attackers are supposed to be quite good at masking their activity. It was emphasized that fake copies of games often have tons of comments and proportionally high number of downloads. This is of course the effect of bot activity, but it can put your guard down.

Martin Jirkal, head of the analytical team at ESET Prague, adds that games are not always used by criminals to distribute banking Trojans, but the creation of clones is usually economically motivated. As he explains, they often contain adware, i.e. software that will not steal from anyone, but causes, for example, intrusive advertising. Of course, to the account of scammers.

Paid game suddenly free – no

By the way, there is also the example of the game “My Singing Monsters Composer” by Big Blue Bubble. This, in turn, is a paid title, priced at PLN 19.99 in Poland, but its pirated versions were to appear for free several times. With Andreed Banking Trojan bundled. Reportedly, tens of thousands of phones were infected in this way.

In conclusion, ESET recommends that avoid installing games of uncertain origin and warn your children against it – and remove previously downloaded titles of this type. Of course, mobile games are made up of hundreds of thousands of companies and it’s hard to remember their names, but obvious anomalies, such as the sudden appearance of a paid game for free, should be thought-provoking.

2023-08-27 20:09:45
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