Fake Madden NFL 2012 Android App Goes Long With Premium Texts

Scammers know that the only thing football fans love more than watching the game is playing Madden, and with the Super Bowl around the corner, they have target Android users with a costly fake Madden NFL 2012 app.

Symantec caught a fake Madden NFL 2012 app masquerading as a legitimate 5MB Android game. The fake app even installs an authentic looking Madden NFL 12 logo on your Android homescreen, but tapping on it won’t do anything but sack your cell phone bill with an expensive round of premium text messaging.

The fake Madden NFL 2012 app is a trojan virus that roots Android phones and allows the creator to send premium text messages. The app intercepts the warning that you are sending a premium text message. This results in a big bill at the end of the month, one that you can fight, but it won’t be an easy battle.

The app can infect Android 2.3 devices, which means that the majority of Android phones are susceptible to the attack.

According to Symantec, the app hides the attack in image files that are used to root, call home and then start the expensive texting process.

The creator was tricky, knowing that a game with a small download would be suspect by many users, so he or she added the following image five times to bump up the file size.

In order to avoid malware like this, you should be sure that you get your apps from the official Android app store or regulated app stores like the Amazon Android app store and getJar.

There are also a number of antivirus and antimalware Android apps that can help protect your phone if you would like a hand in fighting malware.