Google reveals serious Fortnite exploit – and Epic Games isn’t happy
FORTNITE fans must make sure they are running the latest version of the game's launcher before trying to install it on their phones, Google has said.
A major flaw was found in Epic Games' original installer by Google's techies that would have allowed hackers to install ANYTHING onto user's phones when they tried to install Fortnite using the original launcher.
Epic Games decided to distribute the game itself with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney blaming the "30 per cent store tax", a reference to the cut of all app sales Google takes.
This opened up users to security issues by taking them out of the -- relatively -- safe confines of the app store, and it seems that Epic made things worse through sloppy coding.
Earlier versions of the app would have allowed any app on your phone to use the Fortnite app to download and install anything it wanted to, entirely silently.
Once downloaded, that malicious app would then be "granted all permissions it requests," according to Google.
"Epic genuinely appreciated Google's effort to perform an in-depth security audit of Fortnite immediately following our release on Android, and share the results with Epic so we could speedily issue an update to fix the flaw they discovered," Sweeney told Android Central.
However, a week after disclosing the problem to Epic, so that users and other developers are aware of potential vulnerabilities and ensure their devices and software are secure.
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"It was irresponsible of Google to publicly disclose the technical details of the flaw so quickly, while many installations had not yet been updated and were still vulnerable," Sweeney said.
"Google's security analysis efforts are appreciated and benefit the Android platform, however a company as powerful as Google should practice more responsible disclosure timing than this, and not endanger users in the course of its counter-PR efforts against Epic's distribution of Fortnite outside of Google Play," Sweeney concluded.
Google Play's Google Play Protect system, applied to any apps installed through the app store, has countermeasures in place to block installation of apps in cases such as this.
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