The hype for ‘The Last of Us’ gets leveraged for threat campaigns

While the craze for the video game and TV show ‘The Last of Us’ is on for all its fans worldwide, threat actors did not waste time to leverage it for cyberattacks. Researchers have recently found two scam campaigns operating in the wild, one aiming to spread malware and the other using phishing tactics to steal people’s financial data.

The Last of Us is an action-adventure horror video game released in June 2013, garnering millions of avid players worldwide.

After the release of the game’s second part in 2020, cybercriminals have commenced a malicious campaign luring gamers who want to download a pirated version of the game, only to let malware infect their computers.

 

Among the hundreds of thousands of malicious video game copies spread in the wild is ‘The Last of Us.’

 

In a study conducted between July 2021 to June 2022, researchers found that around 384,224 gamers globally have encountered pirated copies of popular video games containing malware. Additionally, over three million phishing attacks on gaming platforms have been documented between 2021 to 2022, with most aiming to steal people’s gaming accounts and bank funds.

Thus, researchers warn that people downloading malicious copies of similar popular video games like The Last of Us risk harming their computers and exposing their data to hackers.

Meanwhile, the second threat campaign spotted was threat actors offering an activation code to play the action horror video game on PlayStation through a malicious website. However, to redeem the code, visitors must enter their banking credentials and credit card data in a form shown on the phishing site.

If a visitor enters their information on the site, the scammers would be able to collect it and hack into their accounts, potentially resulting in emptying their wallets.

Undoubtedly, trending topics online, such as video games and TV shows, inadvertently open ways for hackers to devise tactics to lure avid fans. Therefore, people must practice online safety when downloading video games or watching shows, including moving away from pirated copies. Instead, people must acquire them from official websites and trusted sources.