Fans of the popular game Pokémon Go may be trying to catch them all. But according to Proofpoint, evil doers may be out to get them. Here’s why. The company has identified 543 social media accounts related to Pokémon GO across Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr and of these, 167 – over 30% – were fraudulent. Of note:
- 44 accounts had links to download files, many purporting to be Pokémon GO, game guides, etc.
- 79 were imposter accounts.
- 21 accounts promised “free giveaways”.
Accounts with downloads affected both mobile and desktop platforms and delivered adware, malware, and software other than the one advertised.
So, why is this an issue now? It’s simple. Yesterday Apple announced that Pokemon Go will now be available on the Apple Watch. That means that this is about to become a bigger problem.
The full blog post outlining Proofpoint’s research can be found here. But I am not finished with the bad news just yet.
Pokémon GO has found its way onto devices connected to corporate networks. 4.5% of devices across the organizations we surveyed had Pokémon GO installed, including a small percentage of them (4%) running early versions of the game that had no patch for the Google permissions issues.
In short, your attempt to catch them all may be risky.
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This entry was posted on September 8, 2016 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Proofpoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Are You A Fan Of Pokémon Go? You Might Want To Read This…
Fans of the popular game Pokémon Go may be trying to catch them all. But according to Proofpoint, evil doers may be out to get them. Here’s why. The company has identified 543 social media accounts related to Pokémon GO across Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr and of these, 167 – over 30% – were fraudulent. Of note:
Accounts with downloads affected both mobile and desktop platforms and delivered adware, malware, and software other than the one advertised.
So, why is this an issue now? It’s simple. Yesterday Apple announced that Pokemon Go will now be available on the Apple Watch. That means that this is about to become a bigger problem.
The full blog post outlining Proofpoint’s research can be found here. But I am not finished with the bad news just yet.
Pokémon GO has found its way onto devices connected to corporate networks. 4.5% of devices across the organizations we surveyed had Pokémon GO installed, including a small percentage of them (4%) running early versions of the game that had no patch for the Google permissions issues.
In short, your attempt to catch them all may be risky.
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This entry was posted on September 8, 2016 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Proofpoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.