Flappy Bird Scammers Set To Snare Unsuspecting Victims

Flappy Bird, the hugely popular game that has been pulled down by its creator, Dong Nguyen, from all app stores across various platforms for “our own good”, is still basking in the limelight at least for now. Apparently, as Dong Nguyen announced the relatively early “death” of Flappy Birds, this does not mean that the game itself will lose its popularity. On the contrary, it seems that anything that has to do with Flappy Bird these days is on the rise. This has led scam artists to capitalize on the situation via the introduction of Flappy Bird clones – albeit with a twist, of course. These malicious apps tend to look like the original, but it was specially programmed so that users will send premium rate text messages without them knowing any better.

Trend Micro mentioned, “All of the fake versions we’ve seen so far are premium service abusers – apps that send messages to premium numbers, thus causing unwanted charges to victims’ phone billing statements.” How do you know that your Flappy Bird installer is a legit one? Apparently, the malicious app version would make a request for additional read/send text messages permissions during installation, whereas the original does not need such permissions.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Cellphones, Gaming
Tags: flappy bird