Bad Piggies Chrome app is phony, installs adware
Over 80,000 have been affected by bogus Chrome plugins.
Rovio's spin-off to its phenomenally successful Angry Birds series, Bad Piggies, is available on iOS and Android, yet a host of apps pretending to contain the new mobile title have popped up as Google Chrome apps with the malicious intent of installing adware.
Security firm Barracuda Networks noted that seven of these plugins were from www.playook.info, a suspicious developer of "free" flash games. Installing these plug-ins requires users to grant permission to "access your data on all websites."
Don't do it!
Agreeing to this inserts extra ads into various sites such as Yahoo, eBay, MSN, IMDB and more - along with a game that is definitely not Rovio's Bad Piggies.
Worse, allowing access to such information leaves one at risk of getting their browser hijacked, and the plugin author can gain all sorts of nefarious information like online credit card info and e-mail addresses by monitoring one's browser activity.
According to the report, over 82,000 users have fallen victim to these ploys on Chrome with the number increasing by about 13,000 a day. Yikes!
The report noted "If the plugin requests any permission that does not seem reasonable, do not install it." But if you've already installed, then you should uninstall immediately and change your passwords on other sites. It might be a pain, but better safe than sorry, eh?
