"Given the endless waterfall of garbage that arrives on Steam, it might seem like you can upload and sell absolutely anything on the storefront. However, there are meant to be some verification checks in place to prevent the most egregious examples of nefarious content from reaching the platform-it's just it doesn't always work. Hence BlockBlasters, a Trojan-Horse 2D platformer that released as an innocent game, before being updated such that it could start draining players' crypto wallets."
"It was only when streamer Raivo Plavnieks (RastalandTV) was running a fundraiser to help raise money to treat his stage-4 sarcoma that the cruel nature of the malware became apparent. Someone tuned in and encouraged crypto enthusiast Plavnieks to download BlockBlasters, when the extremely sick man watched $32,000 drain from his funds. "My life was saved for whole 24 hours," the streamer wrote on X, "untill someone tuned in my stream and got me to download verified game on @Steam.""
BlockBlasters launched on Steam as a free 2D platformer and later received an update that included zip files containing apparent malware capable of emptying crypto wallets. The game showed low engagement, with under 7,000 downloads and peak concurrent players never exceeding eight, according to SteamDB estimates. The developer listed is Genesis Interactive, a first-time studio. The malicious behavior became tragically evident during a livestream fundraiser for Raivo Plavnieks (RastalandTV), who was raising money to treat stage-4 sarcoma and lost $32,000 after being prompted to download the verified Steam title.
Read at Kotaku
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