Fake Flappy Bird Apps Are Spreading Android Malware

The creator of Flappy Bird took the game down for moral reasons but that hasn’t stopped people trying to exploit that decision for immoral ones. First we saw people selling phones loaded with Flappy Bird on eBay for grossly inflated prices and now we are seeing scam artists distributing fake Flappy Bird apps loaded full of malware. According to the security research firm Sophos it has discovered a variety of applications claiming to be Flappy Bird in third-party Android market places.

The malware used in most of these dodgy and fake Flappy Bird apps is hardly advanced, once installed they use their privileges to send texts to premium rate numbers at your expense. Other more dangerous forms of malware have also been identified such as those which steal your personal details. Another security firm, Trend Micro, also had similar findings telling users to be wary of all apps from third-party marketplaces, especially those labelled as Flappy Bird. They said malware loaded apps were particularly frequent in third-party apps stores from Russia and Vietnam.

The advice to consumers is simple. Flappy Bird is dead and even if you want to play it again don’t be tricked into downloading shady looking Flappy Bird apps because there is a high chance they will be loaded with malware, especially if it comes from a third-party app store (aka not from Google’s Play Store). Of course Google Play Store apps aren’t totally free from malware either so you’ll definitely need to keep your wits about you.

Image courtesy of Sophos, Information via TheNextWeb