Login
iscover
Share this article on:
Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
Powered by MOMENTUMMEDIA
A second game hiding malware has been removed from digital video game marketplace Steam in as many months.
Valve, the company behind Steam, removed an Action FPS game called Sniper: Phantom’s Resolution from the marketplace after users reported malware was being installed on their devices after downloading a free demo of the game.
As first reported by The Gamer, several Reddit users flagged the game as suspicious. One user called “Feral_Wasp” noted that the store page does not allow users to download the game through Steam, but it has a link that takes users to another site to download the demo, alongside the malware.
Another user named Erroredv1 noted that the demo file caused Firefox to use 10 gigabytes of RAM.
An investigation of the files by user meantbent3 determined that the malware was an info stealer, accessing admin privileges before bypassing Windows credential encryption and then stealing files.
They also noted that it was “mostly undetected by VirusTotal”.
“It runs Fiddler (network traffic interceptor/analyser) and runs dozens of cmdlines that execute various random Node.js tools very quickly and then kill themselves before they can get detected/noticed,” the user said.
The game is no longer available on Steam.
The latest malware game removal comes only a month after Steam removed another game suspected to be malware.
Valve warned gamers who downloaded and launched the game PirateFi that the game’s developer “uploaded builts to Steam that contained suspected malware” and that those who launched the game likely had malicious files executed on their PC, according to a message sent to users posted to Reddit.
“The builds containing the suspected malware have been removed from Steam, but we strongly encourage you to run a full-system scan using an anti-virus product that you trust or use regularly, and inspect your system for unexpected or newly installed software,” said Steam.
“You may also consider fully reformatting your operating system to ensure that no malicious software remains on your machine.”
It is currently unclear how many users downloaded the game in total, but according to a report by TechCrunch, an archived version of the game’s Steam page showed that the game had a 9/10 score out of 51 reviews.
Be the first to hear the latest developments in the cyber industry.
