Minecraft mods might provide leverage in the sandbox 3D adventure gaming experience, but research analysts have requested players to be cautious while installing these mods. Kaspersky experts had earlier unearthed more than 20 malicious apps from Google Play Store that promise Minecraft mods.

Minecraft new mods disguised as malware said to steal social media credentials

The game being downloaded and played by millions of users is no doubt the reason for attracting fraudsters. But what could be surprising is the cybersecurity firm caught hold of another set of malicious apps that are ‘masquerading’ as Minecraft mods on the Play Store. Kaspersky notes that the newly developed ones have potential threat users’ social media credentials and are spreading adware.

“Kaspersky researchers analyzed various apps, including those which are available for download on the Google Play store and claimed to be modpacks (user-created packages with additional gameplay elements) for the game. As a result, the company’s experts found various malicious apps spreading adware or stealing social media credentials,” the cybersecurity firm noted.

While Minecraft brings a blocky adventure to the table, these mods or Minecraft modding helps to add custom items, tools, and blocks to the game. The add-ons found by Kaspersky were said to be “were totally useless from a user perspective”, and following their launch, it concealed the icons. The malicious apps frequently opened the device’s browser to display flash ads and played videos from YouTube. Moreover, these Minecraft apps were observed to be the ‘new, improved versions’ of malware it had detected in the past. This fresh malware would open the browser every other second, or display full-screen ads, ‘effectively making the device unusable.’

“The version we analyzed, for example, opened the browser every two minutes, rendering the device essentially unusable. The thing was especially troubling because it was extremely hard to figure out what was going on, which app was responsible for the troubles, and how to stop it,” Kaspersky said.

While this isn’t the first for the miscreants to use the popular game as bait to fraud users, players are advised to carefully check sources before installing mods to their devices. Thankfully, Kaspersky had notified Google about the loophole and these malicious apps are said to have been taken down from the Play Store.



source https://www.bgr.in/gaming/beware-minecraft-new-mods-disguised-as-malware-can-steal-your-precious-credentials-969473/