If you or your children like to run mods on the Windows or Linux version of Minecraft, you might want to check those installation folders. According to public disclosures from the popular CurseForge and Bukkit mod platforms, both were used to upload compromised versions of popular Minecraft mods infected with malware installation tools. The full extent of the damage has yet to be assessed. According to Bleeping Computer, popular individual mod developers' accounts on the platforms were targeted, after which the Fractureiser spyware was smuggled into updated versions of their user mods. API systems automatically updated some of the mods immediately, some of which have millions of recorded downloads.

Recently, I decided to hold a series of workshops about Java development at the CoderDojo Linz. As lots of kids and teens there enjoy playing Minecraft, it was a straightforward decision to choose Minecraft plugin development as the topic for these workshops. As I never played Minecraft before, I wanted to get to know the game first. My plan to play for 2 or 3 hours to learn the basics escalated rather quickly and I ended up not being productive for a week. Well, probably I could have anticipated that. Anyway, now I'm back and in the following section, I summarized some basics about Minecraft plugin development with Bukkit. Please note that this guide assumes, that you are already familiar with Java. If you are new to Java, I'd recommend getting to know Java first. Here you can find some great resources to learn it.