Angry Birds Space, the latest version of the popular Angry Birds game was released and made available for download on March 22. Just three days after its launch, the latest addition of the game was downloaded over 10 million time worldwide.
With such an overwhelming response from Angry Birds fans, hackers decided to take advantage of it by releasing a fake version of the Angry Birds Space infected with a Trojan horse virus in it. The new virus identified as Andr/KongFu-L is masking itself as the popular Angry Birds Space game for Android.
The virus was first identified by security researchers, Sophos and Graham Cluley, security expert and researcher at Sophos, noted Android users about it in a blog post stating that they had discovered fake versions of the game on unofficial app stores.
SophosLabs recently encountered malware-infected editions of the “Angry Birds Space” game which have been placed in unofficial Android app stores.
The fake version of the game consists of a Trojan horse virus in a file called Andr/KongFu-L, which appears to be a fully-functional version of the popular smartphone game, but uses the GingerBreak exploit to gain root access to the device, and install malicious code.
It has the following aliases -
- HEUR:Backdoor.AndroidOS.KungFu.a
- Backdoor.AndroidOS.KungFu.kg
Once the fake application is installed, hackers can easily go on to send instructions to the device to visit some URLs from the default browser of the device and go on to take advantage of this. That is, the Trojan is designed to communicate with a remote website in an attempt to download and install further malware onto the compromised Android smartphone.
Also Read: Angry Birds on Facebook
At this point, there is no fix available to infected users. However, all Android users are asked to be careful while downloading games and application to their devices. Angry Birds Space is available for download at Google Play, Google’s Android app store. Rovio also warned Android users about this fake version of the game in a blog post, and insisted them to download the new game from their official store.
