Pokemon GO has seemingly taken the world by storm. That is except for the UK…but that’s another story. Kind of, it could be linked. You see, it isn’t “officially” available in the UK, but there are of course work-arounds via unofficial means as there usually is with these things.
To be honest I don’t condone the unofficial ways as there is almost always risk involved, and in the case of Pokemon GO for Android users, that risk is very real.
According to Proofpoint researchers, there is “an infected Android version of…Pokemon GO”. They state:
“This specific APK (Android Application Package) was modified to include the malicious remote access tool (RAT) called DroidJack (also known as SandroRAT), which would virtually give an attacker full control over a victim’s phone. The DroidJack RAT has been described in the past, including by Symantec [2] and Kaspersky [3]. Although we have not observed this malicious APK in the wild, it was uploaded to a malicious file repository service at 09:19:27 UTC on July 7, 2016, less than 72 hours after the game was officially released in New Zealand and Australia.”
Android phones and tablets are amazing for the openness they provide with regards to user freedom, especially in comparison to their Apple counterparts, however that freedom comes with a price. That price incidentally is being careful like you would with your Windows PC, not to download dodgy things that appear too good to be true or claim to be a valid workaround of official channels – which this is.
So Android users, please beware! If you are looking to download Pokemon GO on the sly any time soon, think again, unless you want a RAT crawling all over your mobile device…
What do you think about this? Yet again hackers and the criminal elements of the virtual world are preying on the wants of needy consumers. Would you download anything outside of official stores (Google Play for example)? Let us know what you think in the comments below or in the RGM Forums.
