Minecraft is a well-known video game that may be enjoyed either on a personal computer or on a mobile device. Mojang Studios is responsible for the development of this sandbox game. Players construct and deconstruct a wide variety of block types inside three-dimensional environments, and they have the option of playing in Survivor Mode to test their mettle against the elements of nature or Creative Mode to concentrate on their artistic abilities.
Because of its immense popularity, there have been several efforts made to build games that are quite similar to Minecraft. Because of this, there are a great number of games in the globe with the same basic premise as Minecraft. A recent investigation by the McAfee Mobile Research Team uncovered 38 games that include covert advertising. These HiddenAds programs were uncovered on the Google Play Store, and it is estimated that at least 35 million people across the globe have installed them. It was determined that these applications transfer packets covertly with the purpose of generating advertising money in mass. The misleading games were posted to Google Play under a wide variety of titles, each with its own unique package name. The majority of these applications have already been downloaded by millions of people, and some of them have already surpassed 10 million downloads. These applications function in a way that makes it possible for users to participate in the game without being aware of the huge number of advertising packets that are being created on their respective devices.
The covert advertising packages come from a variety of sources, including Unity, Supersonic, Google, and AppLovin, among others. Because they are not seen on the screen, it is difficult for players to recognize the harmful behavior that is taking place. These games all have a similarity in their first network packets; it’s one of their defining characteristics. They use “3.txt” as the path and appear in the form of https://(random).netlify.app/3.txt. They have a similar structure and use “3.txt” as the path.
This danger has been identified in a number of different nations all around the globe. Our telemetry suggests that the United States of America, Canada, South Korea, and Brazil are the countries where the danger has been most noticeably identified. Before installing software from any app store, users are advised to read the evaluations left by other customers very carefully in order to protect themselves from potential dangers of this kind. In addition, users should verify that the security software installed on their devices is always up to date and install it on their devices.
Information security specialist, currently working as risk infrastructure specialist & investigator.
15 years of experience in risk and control process, security audit support, business continuity design and support, workgroup management and information security standards.