That\u2019s right, more than three million attack attempts on Minecraft alone! Almost twice more than on second-place Roblox. Why? Because so many players are looking to download mods and cheats for Minecraft, and these often turn out to be malicious apps<\/a>.<\/p>\n As for the types of threats being spread, the most common are downloaders, adware, Trojans and backdoors. For several years now, malware downloaders have been the most live threat to the gaming industry\u00a0\u2014 downloaders that tout themselves as the \u201cbest Minecraft modloader you can get\u201d often turn out to download\u2026 backdoors, Trojans and other threats.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s easy to teach your kids to download apps only from trusted sources<\/a> and use security solutions<\/a>, keeping them safe from phishing is more of a challenge. Here, it pays to keep your ears and eyes sharp: the more you and your kids know and read about new scams, the better placed you are to spot them. What\u2019s more, most gaming scams tend to follow a pattern.<\/p>\n Pretty much every top kids\u2019 game these days allows (or encourages) players to customize their character with skins that can cost serious money\u00a0\u2014 millions of dollars<\/a> in some cases! Most kids, of course, don\u2019t have that kind of cash under the bed, so they\u2019re always on the lookout for flashy item giveaways.<\/p>\n One such act of \u201cgenerosity\u201d was uncovered by our experts. The scammers craftily exploited two things close to young gamer hearts: Valorant and MrBeast<\/a>. The first is a popular shooter game, while the other is one of the world\u2019s most successful YouTubers, with a 300 million+ subscriber base \u2013 mostly kids.<\/p>\n MrBeast and the makers of Valorant probably have no idea about their skin giveaway collaboration on a scam website<\/p><\/div>\n The scammers invite gamers to log in to the phishing site using their game account credentials and then to open a treasure chest. Of course, there is no treasure\u00a0\u2014 only a hijacked account.<\/p>\n Most in-game economies are built on two kinds of in-game currency: soft and hard. Soft currency is usually earned through playing the game; hard or premium currency is bought with real-world money. Naturally, it\u2019s the latter that attracts cybercriminals.<\/p>\n For example, one scam asks Pok\u00e9mon GO players to enter their game account username. That is followed by an \u201cI\u2019m not a bot\u201d verification, after which the player lands on a site promising free in-game currency.<\/p>\n Catchy phishing site targeting young Pok\u00e9mon GO players<\/p><\/div>\n Such calls to action are a ruse to redirect users to a far more serious scam, where not only gaming accounts are at stake, but highly sensitive data like bank details.<\/p>\n \u201cDo such_and_such<\/em> and win a prize!\u201d is a standard cybercriminal trick. We unearthed such a scam on a Roblox-related phishing site: victims were offered a US$100 Walmart gift card, the same amount for Taco Bell fast food outlets, and, for the especially greedy, US$25,000 in cash. But there\u2019s a catch: first your payment details, please!<\/p>\n Curious reward lineup: a US$100 voucher alongside US$25,000 in cash<\/p><\/div>\n Since the youngest gamers don\u2019t yet have payment details of their own, they\u2019ll probably feed their parents\u2019 bank card numbers to the hungry site. And you can only imagine mom and dad\u2019s delight when the next billing statement arrives.<\/p>\n Kids often lack basic cybersecurity skills, so can easily fall into cybercriminal traps for example, when trying to download a free game, a mod or a \u2018must-have\u2019 skin. That\u2019s why teaching kids cyber hygiene is one of the most important missions of modern parenting.<\/p>\nPopular phishing scams<\/h2>\n
Free skins<\/h3>\n
![\"MrBeast](\"https:\/\/media.kasperskydaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/09\/06120431\/how-scammers-attack-young-gamers-01.jpg\")
<\/a>Free in-game currency<\/h3>\n
![\"Catchy](\"https:\/\/media.kasperskydaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/09\/06120506\/how-scammers-attack-young-gamers-02.jpg\")
<\/a>Reward for in-game actions<\/h3>\n
![\"Curious](\"https:\/\/media.kasperskydaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/09\/06120534\/how-scammers-attack-young-gamers-03.jpg\")
<\/a>How young gamers can stay safe<\/h2>\n
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