Epic Games Indicates Malware Risks of Fortnite

Epic Games hit the headlines when it declared its decision of not using Google's Play Store for distributing Fortnite. That's because if the game is pulled down from its online site then Epic Games wouldn't have to pay Google an in-application buying sales of 30 percent as cut off. Nevertheless, loading APK files from sources other than 'Play' needs deactivating certain security features which novice users are recommended against doing. Several observers said the strategy could as well lead to trouble, with Epic Games fast justifying the concerns. Fortnite installer of the first one pertaining to Android contained vulnerability which was capable of letting other applications to install malicious software rather than the game itself.

At first, the real downloader application pulled down the Fortnite downloader, one rather simple application which subsequently pulled down the entire length of game straight away from Epic. Google said it was just easy to exploit that downloader since hackers were capable of compromising the request for pulling down Fortnite from Epic quite right up to pulling down everything via clicking the option namely "download game" through execution of man-in-the-middle assault. There would be little indication from the Epic installer that anything went missing with the said assault. In case the downloader pulled down any sinister application instead of Fortnite on an Android device, it'd load the malware instantly upon click of "launch" option.

A fix for the vulnerability has come from Epic which has so told Android Central. It's also unclear whether anybody exploited the vulnerability till the fix appeared. Nevertheless, the developer hasn't liked the way Google handled the happening, blaming the Internet giant for "irresponsibly" revealing the vulnerability publicly even as numerous people really had the opportunity for making their installers up-to-date, while asserted Google would not just wait till the time a greater number of players had made up-to-date. It's fair enough for presuming that certain admirers of Fortnite didn't update prior to the disclosure of the flaw. Engadget.com posted this, August 26, 2018.

It's unnoticeable when the process occurs; however, in the case of Fortnite app that's immensely popular, Google's seriousness with Android's security is evident.

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