There have been several numerous scams related to crypto mining. This is a first time as it appears on the gaming platform, a game called ‘Abstractism’ was accused of crypto mining using players computers.
The Game used “Cryptojacking”
Cryptojacking is a term used to describe a computer systems resources are being used without the knowledge of the owner. Here the hacker uses the resources to mine cryptocurrencies. The resource of a computer is used to verify the block of cryptocurrency transactions. Here the players of the game have no idea that their computer is being used to mine cryptocurrency.
Abstractism was released on Steam on March 15th and it was marked as ‘relaxing’ platform with a simple design. There were many downloads of the game and the players did not have a clue that their resources are being used for mining.
A Youtuber named SidAlpha reviled about the ‘Abstractism Cryptojacking scam’ in one of his videos. This happened as one of the players of the ‘Abstractism’ game contacted him regarding a digital item from other game looked similar in the abstractism game. This was explained by SidAlpha in his youtube video.
A Player then posted on the game’s discussion forum as seen in SidAlpha’s video, claiming the game as a threat. And one of the developers OKalo Union said that
“Bitcoin is outdated, we currently use Abstractism to mine only Monero coins”
The Players of ‘Abstractism’ also have seen that while playing the game it uses high CPU and GPU. This shows that the game has some cryptocurrency mining running in the background.
After the widespread of the news and discussion, the game has been removed from the steam store and all the digital items which are sold by the game have been blocked. But Currently, there is no official explanation by Valve on why the game has been removed.
Lets us wait for the official explanation by Valve regarding the removal of the ‘Abstractism’ game and what is their views on cryptojacking entering into the gaming industry.
