Fake Minecraft mods installed on over one million Android devices

Fake Minecraft mods installed on over one million Android devices




If you or your kids are fans of Minecraft then take care before installing apps that modify the immensely popular game.


Security researchers at Kaspersky say that they have discovered over 20 fake ‘modpack’ apps that are actually designed to bombard users with adverts in such an intrusive and aggressive fashion that using the phone becomes virtually impossible.


According to the team at Kaspersky, users find that no actual mods are loaded after installing the bogus Minecraft modpacks.Indeed, to the user it appears that the app does nothing at all.


And that’s why a user might forget that they ever installed the fake modpack, especially as it hides its icon.


But the bogus app is still there, and – according to researchers – automatically opening a browser window containing ads every two minutes.


In addition, a command & control server can send instructions to the app telling it to open Google Play, Facebook, or play YouTube videos.



Perhaps the most annoying thing about the fake Minecraft mods is that their victims have a very hard time figuring out why their browser (or Google Play, or Facebook, or YouTube) keeps opening. They are likely to conclude that the problem lies in the browser (or whichever app the fake modpack loads). However, uninstalling and reinstalling the browser will not fix the issue, and neither will tinkering with settings.



According to the researchers, the best way to remove the offending app is to look in Settings > Apps and notifications > Show all apps and delete it from there.


In its blog post, Kaspersky identified five fake Minecraft apps which ..

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