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“Our user experience remains of the utmost importance to EA, and every ad network we work with signs up to a strict publisher-standards agreement.”īut PCWorld also found other top free Android OS games delivering similar misleading battery warnings via ads. “After becoming aware of the issue, we immediately resolved it by pulling the ad,” says Ben Webley, head of global in-game advertising and sponsorships for EA. EA Mobile, which developed and maintains the Scrabble app through a licensing arrangement with Hasbro, pulled the ad after PCWorld brought it to the company’s attention. PCWorld stumbled across the Battery Doctor ad on Hasbro’s free, ad-sponsored version of Scrabble. Big Brands and Popular Games Enable Sleazy Ads The domain that hosts the ad and download was registered through a service that shields the owners’ contact information. No contact information for the publishers appears within the app itself.
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What do the makers of Battery Doctor/Battery Upgrade have to say about their apps? We couldn’t find them. “There is no question in my mind that this technique could be used for something far more sinister than a worthless battery app.”
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Worse, the ad links to step-by-step instructions on how to lower your phone’s security settings to install the battery utility, Brandt says. Lastly it periodically transmits changes to the user’s private information and phone-hardware details to its servers. Once the battery app is installed the program sends the phone ads that appear in the drop down status bar of the phone at all times – whether the app is running or not. With a phone user’s name, IMEI, and wireless account information, an attacker could clone the phone and intercept calls and SMS messages, or siphon money from a user by initiating premium calls and SMS services. The installer program for the app, Battery Upgrade, downloaded automatically.Brandt says that one Android battery app, called both Battery Doctor and Battery Upgrade, is particularly problematic: Not only does it not upgrade a battery or extend a charge, but when it’s installed and unlocked, it harvests the phone’s address book, the phone number, the user’s name and email address, and the phone’s unique identifying IMEI number. This ad popped up when we tapped on an ad displayed in the Android version of the game Scrabble.
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In many cases those rogue system utilities and antivirus products are merely disguises for software that spies on users. The ads are similar to scareware marketing tactics that have appeared on PCs: Such ads pop up on desktops or laptops, warning that your computer is infected and advising you to download a program to fix the problem. It’s one thing to market a worthless battery app, he says, but another to scare or trick people into installing a program they don’t need.
“These ads cross a line,” says Andrew Brandt, director of threat research for Solera Networks. Tapping the ad–even by accident–launches the phone’s Web browser, which automatically initiates the download of the app’s installer file on the Android device. For example, PCWorld spotted one ad on an Android phone for a battery utility called Battery Upgrade. In some cases you don’t even need to agree to download the apps. The supposed battery-saver apps that those ads prod you to download, however, could endanger your privacy or siphon money from your wallet–and generally they’ll do nothing to improve your gadget’s battery life, security experts say. Scareware has gone mobile: Users of Android devices are starting to see sleazy ads warning that they need to upgrade their device’s battery.
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