PC gamers are increasingly under attack from malware – particularly Minecraft players

The pandemic and ensuing lockdowns has caused a major spike in the number of people playing PC games in their spare time, which has in turn led to a massive rise in threats aimed at PC gamers, new research has revealed.

In a new report, antivirus maker Kaspersky says it blocked in excess of 5.8 million attacks over the year running up to the end of Q2 2021 (June), consisting of both malware and other ‘unwanted programs’ pretending to be popular PC games.

The company has warned about this before, and this time observed: “PC game-related cyberthreats soared with the introduction of lockdowns in Q2 2020.”

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Minecraft threat

The majority of the threats consisted of downloaders disguised as installers for games, which when activated, fetch and install malware on the host PC, or peddle adware on the system.

Predictably, some of the malware in the mix was very malicious stuff, including backdoors that would allow hackers access to a victim's system, or Trojans that steal precious data and hoover up sensitive financial information such as online banking logins or credit card details.

Mobile gamers were also in the firing line when it comes to malware deception, with Kaspersky noting it compiled stats using attacks disguised as the top 10 mobile titles, as well as the top 24 PC games.

The biggest offender on both PC and mobile fronts? Minecraft. It’s a great target due to the multiple versions and huge number of mods for the game, Kaspersky noted, giving lots of opportunity to package up something nasty. In the year covered, some 3,010,891 attempted infections (blocked by Kaspersky) were down to Minecraft alone.

The next most popular games with would-be malware peddlers were The Sims 4 (which had 1,266,804 detections), PUBG (484,528), Fortnite (267,598) and Grand Theft Auto V (187,114). Interestingly, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which was previously marked out as a big target for malware by Kaspersky in the last report we covered, didn’t make the top five this time.

Analysis: Stay safe out there…

Minecraft players should definitely be wary, then, given that a huge number of these disguised malware bombs were aimed at them – more than half of the total amount, in fact, with The Sims 4 being a long way behind that.

Whatever PC or mobile game you play, though, be very careful around unofficial mods in particular, as this is a major path of exploitation with Minecraft (and any games with a big modding scene). When purchasing or downloading a game, it is of course best to stick to official stores, as away from these, risks increase massively – and it’s no surprise to hear Kaspersky tell us that many infections come from game installers grabbed via warez sites.

Many of these infections also come from phishing attacks, so as ever, be very careful and exercise plenty of common sense around links you might see pop up in your browser, on social media, or in emails or other messages. Always remember: if an offer for a game sounds too good to be true, it’s almost certainly a scam.

It doesn’t hurt to run one of the best antivirus apps, of course, because if the unthinkable happens and you do fall foul of a nasty download, then a quality antivirus will hopefully detect the malicious content and prevent it from doing whatever nefarious task it was created to perform.