HOW ARE OPERATORS EARNING MONEY BY CHEATING GAMERS IN INDIA? [THOUSANDS OF CASES SURFACED IN INDIA]

Gamers from all over the world are fraudulently helping OPERATORS to earn money. This is happening because of downloading games that have a specific type of malware hidden in them.

Games like 'Grand Theft Auto,' 'NBA 2K19' and 'Pro Evolution Soccer 2018' are being brought to the public for free through multiple channels.

But inside them is hidden the code of a crypto mining malware called Crackonosh. After their download, digital money is created secretly.

According to researchers, criminals have earned more than two million dollars (about Rs 14 crore) from this scam.

Researchers at the Avast company say that these "cracked games" are causing Crackonosh to spread rapidly. About 800 cases are coming in front of this cybersecurity company every day.

But Avast can catch them only on those computers in which their anti-virus software has been installed. Therefore, it is feared that this malware is spreading on a large scale.

CASES FOUND IN MANY COUNTRIES

So far, this malware has been found in more than a dozen countries. So far, 13,779 cases have been reported in India.

In addition, this malware has been found in these countries:

• Philippines: 18,448 cases
• Brazil: 16,584 cases
• Poland: 2,727 cases
• America: 11,856 cases
• UK: 8,946 cases

Once installed, Crackonosh shuts down Windows Update to protect itself and removes installed software for security.

This cryptocurrency mining program runs in the background, and the person working on the computer does not even know about it. But it can reduce the computer's speed, using more can damage the computer parts and increase the electricity bill.

Crackonosh shows that wanting to get games for free can give you what you don't want - malware.

"And malware makers are getting a lot out of it."

CYBER ATTACKS ON GAMERS INCREASED

In March, researchers at Cisco Talos found malware in the cheat software of several games. An operating campaign targeted at gamers was discovered by a team at zee data software.

According to cybersecurity company ekamai, cyberattacks on gaming brands and gamers have increased by 40 percent since 2019.

In many of these cyberattacks, gaming accounts were stolen because they contained many expensive in-game items. These are sold by OPERATORS.

"Attack on gamers by criminals continues to grow," says Steve Regan, a researcher at Akamai.

"Gamers are known to spend money on their hobby, and they are constantly involved in it, so criminals target them."

Employees should not store any such material on their company's servers that can tarnish the company's reputation. Institutions should also provide training to staff to spread awareness about this.

'Now the number of ransomware (recovery virus) attacks has not only increased, but they have also become very complex. This is a troubling thing for companies.

'OPERATORS demand more ransom from the victims when they know that they can defame the institution.'

The non-reporting of such incidents by victims and the culture of cover-up in companies make it difficult to estimate ransomware recovery accurately.

According to the experts of mcsoft, ransomware caused damage of $170 billion to companies in the year 2020 alone.

This includes the amount given in the ransom, the work being affected due to the website being down.

RANSOMWARE IS ALSO EVOLVING

A lot has changed since ransomware first appeared a few decades ago.

Earlier cybercriminals either worked alone or worked in small groups.

They used to target only individual internet users earlier. They used to do this by throwing nets through emails and websites.

But over the years, OPERATORS have become very complex, systematic, and ambitious.

Criminal gangs are earning millions of dollars annually through operating. They are now targeting big companies and institutions, and sometimes they extort millions of dollars from a single victim.

Brett Callow has been tracking ransomware attacks for many years.

They say that the strategy of cybercriminals has changed since the year 2019.

'Earlier, we used to see that OPERATORS used to encrypt the company's data to influence its work. But now OPERATORS have started downloading the data themselves.

'This means that they now do more blackmail by threatening to sell or make public the victim's data.'

Experts believe that these threats to defame any person or company are also serious because it is not easy to protect the victim from them.

Having good backups allows companies to reduce the impact of a ransomware attack on their work, but when OPERATORS come to the rescue by threatening to defame, victims do not have much in their hands.