Gamers itching to play ?Bad Piggies,? the spinoff of the monster hit ?Angry Birds,? without paying for it may have to think twice before downloading a supposedly free version of the game.
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Security firm Barracuda Labs said the alleged free web version of Rovio?s latest hit game is indeed a bad piggy: it installs an ad injector into the browser.
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?First, this Angry Birds Bad Piggies game is not authentic: it is a pigs-shoot-birds game. Second, and much worse, once the game installs a plug-in that displays additional advertisements in some popular websites,? it said in a blog post.?
Rovio?s ?Bad Piggies,? a puzzle game starring the villains from ?Angry Birds,? had zoomed to the top of Apple?s App Store charts shortly after its release.?
Barracuda noted those behind the new malware attack are aware that there is no way to play the game without an iOS or Android device, at least for now.
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?This market niche was not overlooked for long, and quickly free versions of games that claimed to be the original Bad Piggies appeared on the Google Chrome web store. ?Downloads from the Chrome web store can be played by anyone with the Chrome browser, installed on a Windows, Linux or Mac OS systems,? it said.
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It also noted the supposed free games had plugins from www.playook.info, a maker of ?free? flash games that hides its name behind Whoisguard.
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Barracuda also said these plugins request significant permissions: ?access your data on all websites.?
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?At this step, you should stop installing this plugin. ?Playing a web-based game should have nothing to do with your other browser tabs at all,? it said.
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Further investigation showed special code in the plug-in checks to see if the page originates with Yahoo and if so, inserts its own ad from playook.info.
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Barracuda said this was not the first time that some Chrome plugins requested extra permissions during the installation.
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Last month, it noted several ?Facebook Timeline Remover? plugins also requested permission to access data on all websites, where they should only touch Facebook.com websites.
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?Users who give up such extensive permission run the risk of getting their browsers hijacked. ?The plugin authors can acquire all the web data when users browse the Internet with Chrome and then misuse users information, such as stealing and selling user email addresses and online credit card information,? it said.
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As of Oct. 2, Barracuda said some 82,593 Chrome users had installed these ad-injected plugins, and the total number is still climbing fast day by day.
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It suggested that Chrome users trying to install a plugin inside the Chrome web store should keep an eye on the requested permissions.
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?If the plugin requests any permission that does not seem reasonable, do not install it. If you have already installed, uninstall them immediately and change your passwords on other websites if possible,? it said.
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On the other hand, it said Google should provide better secure solutions on Chrome web store to protect its users as Chrome becomes more popular.
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?Until then, it?s especially important that Chrome users know how to protect themselves,? it said. ? TJD, GMA News
Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/277467/scitech/gaming/gamers-warned-vs-free-bad-piggies
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