Scammers have latched on to the hugely popular Minecraft game to push what appear to be Android ‘cheat’ apps that are in fact designed to scare users into paying to rid their devices of non-existent malware, security firm ESET
has discovered.
Discovered on Google’s Play, it’s a tactic that has at various times been hugely popular on Windows computers but it still disappointing that Google’s automated rogue app scanner missed these apps on at least 30 occasions in the last nine months.
According to ESET, the first app appeared last August, since when they have been downloaded somewhere between 600,000 and 2.8 million times. The apps always use icons that resemble Minecraft’s look and feel and the lure is that users will be able to mod or beat the game.
