Bad Piggies: fake version hits 80,000 Chrome users with adware

Bad Piggies, the spin-of to Rovio's juggernaut Angry Birds franchise has been blitzing the App Store charts since it launched. But today it was revealed that a fake version of the game has stung over 80,000 Google Chrome users with adware viruses. More below.

Pocket Gamer reports that security firm Barracuda Networks has revealed that if you have downloaded Bad Piggies for Google Chrome, you could be among the 80,000-plus users at risk.

The company issued a security warning to anyone who downloaded the game via Chrome. The game appears when you search for 'Bad Piggies' on the Chrome store, throwing back several bogus versions of the game.

It reads, "First, this Angry Birds Bad Piggies game is not authentic: it is a pigs-shoot-birds game. Second, and much worse, once the game installs a plug-in that displays additional advertisements in some popular websites. Yahoo.com for example."

"As of Oct. 2, 2012, there are about 82,593 Chrome users who installed these ads-injected plugins, and the total number is still climbing fast day by day, e.g., about 13K new installations from October 1 to October 2."

"A suggestion to Chrome users; whenever trying to install a plugin inside the Chrome web store, consider the requested permissions with a critical eye toward the intent of the plugin."

"If the plugin requests any permission that does not seem reasonable, do not install it. If you have already installed, uninstall them immediately and change your passwords on other websites if possible."