Fortnite Android WARNING: Mobile users told of scams and spyware on Google

It seems Epic Games has made it their mission to release Fortnite Battle Royale on as many platforms as possible.

They even surprised analysts and gamers alike earlier this year when they launched Fortnite on Mobile.

The iOS port went on to be a huge success, with Epic Games releasing the Android app months later.

But having launched Fortnite on Android – the huge platform populated by the Google Play Store – new warnings have also been released.

Malicious apps popped up before the launch of Fortnite on Android, putting a lot of people’s personal data at risk.

And it appears these download scams have continued following the launch of the official Fortnite Android port.

More than 20% of Android apps claiming to be the game contain ways to spy on unwitting users by requiring them to agree to invasive permissions.

This is according to new research by Top10VPN.com – the world’s largest VPN comparison service, who claim that many of these malicious apps have sprung up on Amazon and off-brand app marketplaces.

The Google Play Store itself confirms that the Fortnite App is not available to download from it, so it would make sense that the scams would have to be hosted in other places.

And that wouldn’t stop these rogue apps being found via searches on Google, which is apparently something that’s happening still.

The new research suggests that tens of unofficial apps professing to give beta (early) access to the game are now available to download from marketplaces such as Amazon and through searches on Google.

According to Top10VPN.com, 20% of these apps ask users to accept excessive permissions before they can play the game – including allowing access to their contacts, dial a number without their knowledge, installing software silently in the background and monitor when they are making a call and who they are calling.

“By assenting to these permissions, gamers are essentially handing a free pass to those who might want to spy on them – which will come as a big concern for parents of Fortnite players,” The TopVPN report explains.

“Allowing access to the camera, for example, could allow anyone watching to essentially collect images that the camera is seeing at any point while consenting to location details allows mobile users to be tracked in the real world at any point,” a report from the company reads.

“While some of these apps do allow gamers to play the game after accepting invasive permissions, Top10VPN’s research found that about 30% of Fortnite ‘apps’ through Google searches were just thinly veiled guides to the game that were actually adware with very little real content – the majority of which can be found on Amazon.

“More sinisterly, 10% were scams containing no game files or content at all, even raising multiple red flags for trojans and other malware during scans.”

Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN.com, adds: “Fortnite is a victim of its own success. It now reportedly has 125 million active users, and while this is great news for the publisher, its success has acted as a blazing beacon to unofficial developers and scammers.

“The long-awaited arrival of the Android version of the game has seen a number of bootleg versions of the game spring up in its absence from the Play store.

“While some of these unofficial apps are well-meaning and otherwise give non-Apple users access to the game on their handsets, a worrying number ask users to accept excessive permissions before they can play the game.

“This means gamers are unwittingly leaving the door open to hackers with more malicious ideas who might want to monitor your calls and even access your phone’s camera.

“With no real knowledge about the people behind these bootleg apps, it’s simply not worth the risk to install them on your device.”

Fortnite Battle Royale is a free-to-play game developed by Epic Games for PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, Mac and Mobile.