Bitcoin-Stealing Malware Targets Fortnite Game Players
Fortnite is a very popular game series that has won the hearts of many gamers and holds a proud place in the pack of series on every player’s computer. However, this has also become the main reason why the new bitcoin-stealing malware that acts as a cheating tool is attacking this particular lot of players.
The discovery was by Christopher Boyd, lead analyst for malware intelligence at Malwarebytes Labs who found a cheating tool in disguise for Fortnite games and the malware can steal all the data and bitcoin from the gamers. The blog posted by the research team on their website also shares the information how the malware is transmitted to protect other players from becoming the victim to bitcoin stealing malware.
The malware was among the “free season passes” videos on YouTube and the offers that were available online scamming the players to get a free Android version of the game. So if you see a blog or a video offering such “free” accesses to the popular gaming series, you might not want to pursue the idea as it can potentially lead to a hack.
It was also a step-by-step process for the malware to attack your data as finding the malware was tedious enough by itself. The process required for the researchers to subscribe to a YouTube channel that uploaded the video of the offer and then taking part in the survey before gaining access to the malware downloading location.
Some of the videos on the streaming platform were titled, “New Season 6 Fortnite Hack Cheat Free Download September 2018 / WH / Aimbot/ Undetectable”, “Fortnite Hack Free Download,” and “Fortnite Cheat.” One of the videos gained more than 100k views before it could be reported as spam and was later pulled down.
Boyd believes that this type of disguised malware can do a lot of damage which viewers might confuse to be a cheat tool or a new technique to improve their gameplay in Fortnite series. The process will bring a .exe file to the attacked system which will gather the details from the computer and send data with a ‘post’ command.
Along with the data, the malware can take away personal and supposedly secure information about the bitcoin wallets, cookies, and browser history altogether. Boyd asks the gamers and players to stay aware of such prompting and alluring cheat offers for Fortnite games as it might be a malware attack in any of the sources.
He says, “Winning is great, but it’s absolutely not worth risking a huge slice of personal information to get the job done.” If you see any questionable offers asking to buy cheats in exchange for bitcoin, you should get the hint. You might not know, but the many clickthroughs might be installing a new stealing malware in your system.
