When virtual mittens sell for thousands, of course gamers are ripe targets for cyber shenanigans

Players of games like Fortnite and Minecraft have emerged as juicy targets for cybercriminals. It might sound ridiculous, but stealing and reselling weapon skins, loot boxes and entire levelled-up accounts can bring in big money. Last year, a particular rifle skin in CS:GO went for 60,000 real American dollars. A Legacy …

[Semtex451]

Right. I'm off to live in a cave.

[Captain Scarlet]

Oh you don't want to by this useless Dota 2 skin pack off me then (If this virtual thing is worth anything I'm selling it and I put it towards the tournament type features for more virtual stuff which I'll just sell)

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this cave have fibre??

[Anonymous Coward]

For every game that has creds and loot boxes, there will be websites offering free creds if you click here and give us your usernames and passwords. Kids do it all the time, they might only do it once but there's a constant stream of new, fresh targets as kids come of age. What's annoying is these websites exist for years because like the article says, law enforcement isn't interested in virtual loot.

[0laf]

Not all stupid

Not all crims are stupid. they know to look for low hanging fruit and if it's unguarded even better.

Gamers are juicy for them so it's not a surprise they're being targetted.

You can never get rid of criminals or crime all you can do is move it on away from you.

You have an alarm on your house not becasue it really make you any harder to break into, (who cares when a house alarm goes off?) but it makes the house next door without an alarm more appealing then yours.

Banks are hard to crack so they target gamers. Make the gamers harder to crack and they'll hit something else.

[GnuTzu]

Re: Not all stupid -- Even Trained

Not to mention that manner in which gamers are conditioned by the games themselves to be a kind of hacker. That is, the object in the games is something you keep hacking at. Hmmm... Seems worth of a sociological study. And, I wonder how this might have other long lasting effects to society.

[ds6]

Re: Not all stupid

I doubt the kinds of people that fall for these scams have had their respective fruit dropped yet.

[DropBear]

Considering that contrary to the typical tens to hundreds of dollars in most games, the value stored in a Star Citizen account is usually from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, I'm glad I don't hear about this sort of thing happening all that often there. Though to be fair, they _do_ allow you to use two factor authentication, and even a successful hijack might see the ships transferred back to their original owner. Or maybe it's just _still_ too niche...

[Richard 12]

It's not about the cost

It's about the resale value.

Does Star Citizen allow users to transfer their virtual spaceships to each other, or can they only be purchased from the developer?

[Carpet Deal 'em]

"Scam citizen" has too small a playerbase to be worth the effort. If it ever released, it might attract an audience that will pay big bucks for the thousand+ dollar ships already and previously on offer, but as it is fencing things for cash would be difficult if not impossible.

[RichardBarrell]

This isn't a *new* thing, though the scale of it may be, and the paper value of the virtual heists is going up. Stealing peoples' accounts in order to steal their in-game loot is about as old as MMOs.

[tmTM]

The question is, where did someone get 60 grand to spend on a stupid weapon skin?

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Fools and their money .... looks like the gamers dont need any help from the criminals to throw their money away.

just found this :

So the weapon that was sold, the Dragon Lore, was marked as such, featuring a sticker “signed” by Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham, who serves on the Cloud9 squad. They recently won the ELeague Major: Boston event, with Latham named the MVP. So, following that news, the skin rocketed up in price, and was sold to the unnamed buyer by a skin seller named Drone for the grand total of…wait for it…$61,052.63.

Whats a MVP?

wait , so they had a little competition, they let one (or more) of the winning team members have their name on a rifle skin (the only copy) and some idiot buys it (presumably off this Tyler) for 61k?

That's like buying a trophy with someone else's name on it!

must be kid with a very rich daddy

[Am]

"That's like buying a trophy with someone else's name on it!"

Maybe more like sporting paraphernalia (footballs, shirts, what-have-you) signed by the person who scored the most goals/won/whatever. MVP is "most valuable player" - so the player who contributed the most to the win (most kills, goals, whatever).

I do think it's a ludicrous amount of money to spend on something like that, but then signed memorabilia isn't my thing.

[drone2903 in Kanuckistant]

wasnt me, I swear, guv

[Voidstorm]

I have this fabulous tulip bulb to sell you, for the mere cost of a house.

Value is perceptional.

Even the value of hard goods is subject to supply and demand, and virtual goods are no different, in truth, than a tulip bulb, a house, or a gold bar, or a bitcoin.

If a virtual object is hard to obtain, it will have value to somebody.

It has taken work to create, or skill to obtain, or luck to find, so it has value as a target for crime.

[iron]

As a former EVE player, thefts from players and player groups are a thing I am very aware of so my gaming accounts have had the best security of all my online accounts for over a decade. The longest passwords, 2FA, etc. Better security than the crap my bank insists on.

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

And just to think...

That the whole arms race kicked off with a tiny piece of Elder Scrolls horse armour.

[BebopWeBop]

Most popular target? Gamers in the US.

“I rob banks because that’s where the money is,” Willie Sutton (a well known US criminal)

[Great Bu]

A public service assisting the evolution of mankind....

I would suggest that anyone who wants to pay actual cash money for something that is entirely cosmetic in a virtual world should have all their money taken off them for their own safety.....these criminals are doing a public service.

[Anonymous Coward]

ElReg is starting to become useless

Three articles from Akamai Edge World and zero from Cisco Live? You've got to be kidding me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ElReg is starting to become useless

Was there anything of value or interest at Cisco Live?

Asking for a friend.

[Anonymous Coward]

As seen in the recent Steven Spielberg documentary "Ready Player One"

Considering that, I don't see why everyone is so surprised.

(Don't "lose your shit" when you lose your shit.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Not on the list

Not on the list, but there has been a recent increase in account stealing in LOTRO, via poisoned websites people are directed to from in-game messages offering free Lotro Points.

As above, account stealing/gutting has been going on for years; remember Sheldon losing his battle ostrich??

As long as their are lazy/greedy people, this scam will work.

[Claverhouse]

It's easy to scoff, but how would anyone feel if they lost a non-existent thing ?

[Alistair]

Happy to report

I've never lost a battle ostrich.

Or a B'atleth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Akamai State of the Internet Report

Look at the cover! A game awaits.

Have fun, good luck.

Drink your ovaltine.