{"id":1415,"date":"2013-08-07T13:46:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T05:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=1415"},"modified":"2013-08-07T13:46:47","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T05:46:47","slug":"cybercriminals-exploit-plants-vs-zombies-2-hype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2013\/08\/07\/cybercriminals-exploit-plants-vs-zombies-2-hype\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybercriminals exploit Plants vs. Zombies 2 hype"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1416\" style=\"width: 257px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Cybercrime-agains-Plants-vs-Zombies.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1416\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1416\" alt=\"Fake Plants vs. Zombie 2 link found on YouTube\" src=\"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Cybercrime-agains-Plants-vs-Zombies-247x300.jpg\" width=\"247\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Cybercrime-agains-Plants-vs-Zombies-247x300.jpg 247w, http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Cybercrime-agains-Plants-vs-Zombies.jpg 299w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 247px) 100vw, 247px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1416\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fake Plants vs. Zombie 2 link found on YouTube<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A new wave of zombies is coming, and cybercriminals are in tow. The buzz surrounding the much anticipated Plants vs. Zombies sequel is drawing cybercriminals to take advantage of the hype.<\/p>\n<p>The first wave of threat was detected around July 16, just a week after Plants vs. Zombies 2 was launched in Australia and New Zealand. Trend Micro found a link from a YouTube video page that redirected users to an online survey scam hosted on Blogger. No malware was detected.<\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>By July 22, seven other Plants vs. Zombies 2-related threats spotted in Google Play were disguised either as downloaders or applications capable of pushing malicious ads to unsuspecting users.<\/p>\n<p>TrendLabs fraud analyst Ruby Santos says the existence of these threats is nothing new. Cybercriminals always find a way to capitalize on any popular trends to lure unsuspecting users. In the past, they\u2019ve targeted popular games like Candy Crush, Bad Piggies, and Temple Run.<\/p>\n<p>Santos urges users to consider these tips so they can avoid getting scammed:<br \/>\n1. The usage of popular, up-and-coming sequels to high-profile game apps already available in the iOS App Store but not yet in Google Play<br \/>\n2. The fake apps asking for 5-star ratings and reviews before they could be \u2018played\u2019<br \/>\n3. The fake apps are free of charge, in contrast to the legitimate apps which cost money<\/p>\n<p>Santos added that even if Google is creating safety measures on their store, users should not be complacent in downloading apps. The standard rules of safe app downloading still apply: they should only download from verified first-party sources, and avoid sideloading or downloading from suspicious \u2018developers\u2019 or unauthorized parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new wave of zombies is coming, and cybercriminals are in tow. The buzz surrounding the much anticipated Plants vs. Zombies sequel is drawing cybercriminals to take advantage of the hype.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,19],"tags":[495,432],"class_list":["post-1415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apps","category-headlines","tag-cybersecurity-and-cybercrime","tag-trend-micro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}