Security News > 2021 > March > Malware hidden in game cheats and mods used to target gamers
Threat actors target gamers with backdoored game tweaks, patches, and cheats hiding malware capable of stealing information from infected systems.
Cisco Talos researchers who spotted multiple campaigns using these tactics said that they've "Seen several small tools looking like game patches, tweaks or modding tools" backdoored with obfuscated malware.
"These types of attacks are a return to form for classic virus campaigns - video game players are no strangers to trying to avoid malicious downloads while trying to change the game they're playing," the researchers said in a report published today.
One of the malware strains deployed on infected gamers' computers is XtremeRAT, a commercially available remote access trojan used in targeted attacks and traditional cybercrime since at least 2010.
Malware droppers deployed on gamers' systems who executed the malicious game tools also employ process injection techniques to inoculate the malicious code into newly spawned processes.
Game cheats are a known source of malware infections and have been used to infect gamers with remote access trojans, cryptocurrency miners, and other malware strains.