Steam has come under fire in recent months for opening its store to hundreds of decidedly dodgy games, and it seems this policy is once again hurting customers, as one game on the Steam store is reportedly turning players' computers into a cryptocurrency-mining botnet.
The offending game in question is called Abstractism - an indie which masquerades as a "trivial platformer" but seems to be doing something far more insidious. Multiple players have left negative reviews with screenshots showing evidence the game installs a Trojan virus "disguised as as a steam.exe process" along with malware under the name "abstractism launcher". After seeing these reports, YouTuber SidAlpha investigated the game and found these viruses are likely installing cryptocurrency mining software. This presents a huge risk for players, as according to CSO, "cryptojacking" can damage computer performance, increase electricity bills, and even infect cloud infrastructure.
Although cryptojacking is notoriously difficult to detect, one of the clearest signs a computer is being used to mine coins is increased use of CPU and GPU, both of which have been reported by Abstractism's players. The game's developer, Okalo Union, has claimed this only occurs when players are using "high graphics settings", but this is inconsistent with the style of the game (a simple platformer) and the very low recommended settings listed for the game on its Steam store page.
from Eurogamer.net https://ift.tt/2Lx7Q4N
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