
The world of gamedev is harsh and complex. Not only did
Watch Dogs play the sensational game on shows a few days before the official release, they also added a small
surprise. As it became known, a hacked Windows version of the game, sold out to many torrent trackers called
Watch Dogs-Deluxe-SKIDROWCRACK , contains a Trojan that installs a Bitcoin miner on the victim's computer. While the hapless player gets used to the role of a fictional hacker, cursing from the noticeable lags of the game, real hackers get bitcoin-counters in their piggy bank. Despite the fact that even the owners of licensed versions complain about the big appetites of the game and lags, the miner aggravates the situation even more, eating, according to the source, about a quarter of the CPU resource. Unfortunately, there is no information about a specific type of miner (is there a GPU or CPU?) And methods of infection and communication with the coordinator, but it is known that the Trojan itself is located in the
AppData \ Roaming \ OaPja folder .
Judging by the statistics of torrent trackers, at least tens of thousands of people have downloaded the game, and although most trackers have already closed the corresponding distribution, this is unlikely to stop the spread of the virus. Although this is not the first time a miner-botnet has appeared, it is notable for its elegantly selected target audience: the average user usually doesn’t hesitate to share administrator rights with the installer and often disables the antivirus while playing for the sake of increased performance, while the high system requirements for AAA class games guarantee the presence on the victim computer of a high-performance video card necessary for active mining. Apparently, these surprises will occur more and more often, so be careful, buy games, wash your hands before eating and no infection will stick to you.
[
news source ]