A cybersecurity company discovers that on the web Fortnite scams still pull a lot and allow you to earn a lot of money
Until a few weeks ago the main threat came from fake apps on the Play Store, but now that Fortnite on Android is freely downloadable by everyone many believed that the scams related to the most famous video game of the moment were destined to disappear once and for all. According to the analysis of several IT security companies, however, they are more alive than ever.
This is revealed, for example, by a research of ZeroFox, a company active in the security of social networks and analysis of online risks. During a scan of the network for Fortnite scams, security experts found nearly 5,000 active websites, several thousand YouTube videos and hundreds and hundreds of posts on various social networks with links that directed to potentially dangerous resources. The goal, in most cases, is to steal the personal information of unsuspecting gamers, but that's not all.
Free V-bucks at the heart of Fortnite scams
But how do hackers lure Fortnite players into counterfeit sites and YouTube videos with dangerous links? Simple: by promising easy V-bucks. Even if you play Fortnite for free, in fact, gamers can use a whole currency (V-Bucks, in fact) to buy upgrades for their character, new weapons and new skins. In this way Epic Games, developer of the game, manages to grind tens of millions of dollars in profits every day.
It happens, however, that some players would like to get V-Bucks for free, and it is at this point that hackers enter the scene. Knowing this "weakness", in fact, hackers create real bait in the form of V-Bucks generators or coupons for free V-Bucks. All obviously fake. In this way, however, they manage to intercept the requests of those seeking how to get free V Bucks, thus making them land on their site or YouTube video.
Once arrived on the portal, the user will have to see dozens of advertisements or leave their personal data in the hope of receiving the virtual currency of Fortnite. Which, of course, will never materialize. On the other side of the fence, however, the hacker will have gained with the ads displayed or, worse, will have come into possession of personal information of hundreds and hundreds of gamers who will risk suffering identity theft to not spend a few euros.