UK regulator fines fake Angry Birds publisher

Latvian firm punished for replica scams.

A1 Agregator offered fake versions Angry Birds, Assassins Creed and Cut The Rope, which then triggered £5 premium rate messages from within the app. It hid these transactions until the bill came through.

It's a growing new form of criminality, which echoes the ringtone scams of the mid-noughties.

UK regulator PhonePayPlus is trying to come down hard and early on this form of scamming and hit the firm with a £50,000 fine.

A1 Agregator was ordered to refund all the customers for the unauthorised charges and will be subject to close monitoring the regulator for the next 12 months.

This malware attack was dubbed RuFraud by security experts and approximately 14,000 downloads of the malicious apps were made worldwide.

The RuFraud attack affected 1,391 mobile numbers in the UK and £27,850 was taken before the shortcode was suspended.

PhonepayPlus claims none of the £27,850 of UK consumer money reached the fraudsters.

Google has removed the apps from the App Store.

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