Warns of scams related to Fortnite downloads

ESET, a leading proactive threat detection company, discovered various scams related to Fortnite (Battle Royale and Save the World), the video game of Epic Games. The survey revealed users who have promised to advance the game and thus steal the account and badociated data, as well as fake apps to gain benefits that install malware on the computer of the victim or the ability to install the game on Android. when this option does not exist.

The Fortnite video game and more particularly its Battle Royale mode, is considered one of the phenomena of the year. As is often the case with applications that have great success, offenders do not take the advantage of getting their own advantage at the expense of users. It has already been observed in the case of Pokemon Go a few years ago and now it is repeated with Fortnite.

In addition to being able to play this game on computers and consoles, much of its success is explained by the possibility of playing it on smartphones, although for the moment this possibility is only reduced to iOS devices such as the iPhone or the iPad. Although the launch for Android is scheduled for the coming months, cyber criminals are tackling the false possibility of installing the game on Android that ends up infecting the device.

One of the most used techniques is to prepare videos in which players are shown how to download and install a supposed version of Fortnite for Android.

This possibility does not currently exist, and what they want, is to lure users to click on links that download all kinds of applications fraudulent, some even with the appearance of the game but who, in fact, only show ads or install other applications that have nothing to do with Fortnite.

Lukas Stefanko, ESET malware badyst, made a video explaining how you can get infected with the game download for Android devices.

Example how can you be infected by downloading #Fortnite Android application of YouT ube video with 130K + views.
This sends an SMS to the premium number and downloads another fake application. pic.twitter.com/pYj8GZoqoZ

– Lukas Stefanko (@LukasStefanko) June 21, 2018

On the other hand, users who like this game on their computer are also affected by this type of cheating. Some users want to gain advantages over their rivals and that is why they are looking for ways to cheat and install software that allows them. A quick review of Fortnite hacks brings hundreds of results with videos explaining how to make these pitfalls or how to get the currency used in the game (V-bucks) for free to buy new cosmetic props for their characters. These applications gain competitive advantages that end up infecting players with equipment malware (often adware is used to display advertisements continuously and report benefits to offenders) or that information from 39, access to the game are stolen; As it was known a few weeks ago

Finally, more traditional techniques of cheating have also been observed to users of this game where users promise help to advance the game and steal the account and badociated data. For example, the case of a teenager that another user convinced to give him his references to access the game, promising in return that his character would receive all kinds of supplements that otherwise would have cost a lot of money. Hours and money. Logically, once these data are obtained, the offender changes them and this teenager can no longer log on to his account, losing all the progress made and all the supplements he has paid so far (estimated at $ 300). The problem did not stop there, since the mother 's credit card was tied to the account she was using to play Fortnite, and that the offender could use it to pay for it. buying new supplements or something else.

The teenager warned that this offender had also taken control of his Gmail account, most likely sharing the same pbadword as the one used in the Fortnite account.

"Criminals take advantage of any mode that can attract new victims, and they use the most varied techniques to achieve this.These types of incidents perfectly illustrate the need to be attentive to deception, to think twice about downloading an application, keeping our pbadwords safe, sharing them with no one and not reusing them in other services, this alerts us when a link or file is dangerous "said Camilo Gutierrez, head of ESET Latin America's Research Laboratory.

This simple research to avoid falling into Fortnite traps comes from the ESET Latin America Research Laboratory. :

Download applications only in official stores. It does not matter how much you want to play Fornite on an Android device, until Epic Games does not officially announce it, do not download it from a site other than the official Google Play Store. , and always check in detail that it is the legitimate application.

Never provide identification information to anyone who requests it, regardless of the number of rewards or favors promised. And remember that you should not share the same pbadword in different services.

Cheating in games is already frowned upon and may even have negative consequences, such as preventing you from playing again with the account. If you also access all types of links indiscriminately to get these benefits, you may end up infecting the device.