'Flight Simulator' Developer Apologizes for Using Malware
Flight Sim Labs, a development studio that makes different in-game plane and cockpit models for Microsoft's "Flight Simulator" series, has been accused of adding malware into the software the push out. With the developer caught between rioting users and security experts, founder Lefteris Kalamaras issued an explanation and an apology.
Customers of Flight Sim Labs include not just aspiring flight hobbyists, but also military and commercial pilots who use "Flight Simulator" as a way to train. Considering this, the decision by the development studio to inject intrusive Digital Rights Management in its software, something that reportedly compromised personal data from its users, has been a serious charge levied against them, as Polygon noted.
The explanation was posted on the Flight Sim Labs forum, as Kalamaras also linked to an updated A320-X version 232 installer that presumably does not include the malware.
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He also vowed to "never use any such heavy-handed approach in the future. Once again, we humbly apologize!" as he explained in a later post.
The unwanted software, in this case, is what is allegedly a tool that extracts passwords stored in Google Chrome, according to a post from the Reddit flight sim community. With the Flight Sim Lab's DLC for the A320 series of planes coming with an installer that asks for Administrative rights, the software can run with enough privilege to extract stored passwords in the browser.
Caught slipping a little something extra in their explorer, Flight Sim Labs founder Kalamaras called it their "specific method used against specific serial numbers that have been identified as pirate copies."
He goes on to somewhat confirm that the extraction works, by adding that "This method has already successfully provided information that we're going to use in our ongoing legal battles against such criminals," as Kalamaras called them.
