Minecraft players, beware fake 'mods' on Google Play

It could be "game over" for Minecraft fans who downloaded unauthorized mods (modifications) for their Android smartphone or tablet. Instead of finding new content or tools to tweak the wildly popular Minecraft: Pocket Edition mobile game, more than 80 malicious apps -- disguised as Minecraft mods -- contained Trojans that bombarded users with advertisements or redirected them to scam websites, says ESET, a Slovakia-based cybersecurity company. Lukas Stefanko, the malware researcher who discovered the fake mods, says there have been nearly 1 million downloads of the malicious apps from the Google Play store. "Users often fall for phony apps because they're promising to deliver something new for a famous game like Minecraft, plus many have positive – but fabricated – ratings," says Stefanko, in an interview with USA TODAY. Once launched, the apps displayed a screen with a download button, which didn't install a mod but took users to a web browser with "scareware" messages on them, such as falsely notifying users of a found virus on their device, and promoting them to download a new app.