McAfee is claiming that 8/10 Flappy Bird clones contain malware

Earlier this year, a game called Flappy Bird hit smartphones around the world. There was something incredibly addictive about the game and its retro graphics that made it so appealing. Unfortunately its creator made an odd choice of removing the game from app stores, claiming that he removed it for our own good. However once the game was removed, app stores were soon flooded with clones and lookalikes, but as it turns out, a good majority of those clones and lookalikes had malware hidden in them, according to a report from McAfee. Now we knew that some of them had malware, but the latest report from McAfee claims that 80% of those clones had malware. This is pretty scary since we’re sure that many gamers out there eagerly rushed to download a lookalike to see what all the fuss is about. As to what exactly the malware will do on your phone, well it ranges from making phone calls without permissions to numbers that charge high rates, or sending text messages that collect money.

A report from security expert McAfee says that 80% of the Flappy Bird clones tested, contained malware. For those who were in a coma earlier this year, or somehow missed the whole Flappy Bird craze, we are talking about a simple but highly addictive game. Borrowing heavily from Super Mario Brothers, Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen spent three days putting the game together, and was soon generating $50,000 a day in revenue. Instead of letting Flappy Bird mania run its course, and making a quick million dollars, Nguyen felt that the game was too addictive and pulled it from all app stores. But that left countless players in Flappy Bird withdrawal, a problem solved by third party developers who quickly knocked off the character and the game play. The problem is that a high percentage of these clones contain malware, according to McAfee. And because of the open source nature of Android, most of these infected Flappy Bird clones are found on apps made for Android phones. One of the most common events caused by the malware, are phone calls made without permission. Brian Kenyon, chief technical strategist at McAfee, said that these calls go to premium numbers that charge extra “much like the chat numbers that had a huge impact on people’s phone bills a few years ago.” Texts are also sent to SMS addresses that collect money. In addition, the malware gives away the user’s location, which is helpful when a zip code is required to pull a credit card scam.