Check Point specialists hacked “Snake” prank game on Google Maps

IT security experts team from Check Point Research laboratory succeeded in hacking “snake” game that Google Maps developers added in iOS and Android applications as an April Fool’s Day prank.

“The Check Point Research team, although usually pretty busy investigating the latest cyber threats, found themselves somewhat distracted by the addictive game, though got increasingly frustrated when they kept losing… So a curious thought arose, why not hack our way into winning!”, — researchers explained

Their efforts were not fruitless. On the snake.googlemaps.com domain Check Point explorers found a code that is responsible for game borders and estimated conditions for snake’s death as it crashed walls of the game field. This allowed adding “God ‘mode” in a game. However, team of researchers did not stop with it and enhanced application with AI mode that could rule the snake independently.

After it, specialists could continue cyber threats prevention.

They also described the hacking process and uploaded a demo video to the company’s website.

Screenshot from demonstration of the AI game on the London location

Source: https://research.checkpoint.com/reverse-engineering-the-google-maps-snake-game