Hackers are targeting gaming pirates, infecting their PCs with Cryptojacks

If you pirate games, there is a chance that you may end up cryptojack software on your PC

Avast, the security company best known for their antivirus software has discovered a new malware called 'Crackonosh' that infects a users pc and hijacks it for crypto mining. How do they do this? Using pirated games.

As much as we all like to believe that game pirating is a thing of the past, there are still people out there who will sail the high seas to look for a torrent for their favourite games. The appeal of getting a good game for free is still attractive to some and those people are exactly the ones that these hackers seem to be targeting.

The malware was found hidden within files of popular titles like GTA 5, FarCry 5, The Sims 4, Jurassic World Evolution and various games in the NBA2K series. Once the malware is installed on your system, it covertly operates and mines cryptocurrency in the background using your processor resources to achieve the goal. Avast says that the hackers have so far made 2$ million since they first spread the malware in 2018.

If you still pirate game, then first of all don't because you are screwing over hard working developers and second, pirated game files are often just a playground for a lot worse than this. Ransomware, viruses and other malicious codes have routinely been discovered within cracked games. You may also want to know that it is illegal to download and play pirated games, so you could end up looking at a hefty fine or in some case, even jail time.