The malware used in this attack is XtremeRat (ExtRat) which is a commercially available remote access trojan (RAT).
It is a known fact that gamers are the most cautious individuals when it comes to protecting their PCs from viruses but when hackers decided to place malware in video game cheat codes, things became a little tough for these gamers.
According to Cisco Talos research which was published on Wednesday, threat actors have started targeting gamers specifically with backdoored game tweaks that hide malware capable of stealing information from their systems through gaining microphone and webcam access.
How are these campaigns advertised and how exactly are gamers lured into downloading these cheat codes?
SEE: Fake mobile version of Valorant game spreading malware
Firstly, the very fact that this malware is hidden in legitimate files that users download to run their game patches, tweaks, or modding tools already makes it very hard for gamers to detect whether anything malicious is being installed on their computers.
Secondly, the attackers mostly popularise their malware-laced modding-related game tools through social media channels and YouTube how-to videos.
The screenshot below shows an example of one on YouTube.
The hackers behind this campaign carefully concealed their malicious intent by employing a VisualBasic-based cryptor to obfuscate the malware which shows that the common threats we face nowadays are actually more sophisticated ..
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