An NFT “game” titled Pokémon Card Game has been uncovered as not a game at all, but just fucking malware. Of course.
First reported by BleepingComputer, some nefarious actors have created Pokémon Card Game, a fake Pokémon TCG NFT game designed to fool users into installing a remote control software that allows their computers to be accessed remotely by hackers.
The website (which we won’t be linking) was discovered and exposed by AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC), an analyst offshoot of AhnLab based in South Korea known for reporting on phishing scams and viruses.
The basic gist of the website is that it claims to be a new NFT card game built around the Pokémon TCG franchise, where players can play against each other virtually while also profiting from the NFTs they buy for the game. But of course, that’s total bullshit!
In reality, any poor sod that makes the mistake of clicking the “Play on PC” button will download a .exe file that looks like a proper Pokémon game installer that installs the NetSupport remote access tool (RAT) onto the user’s PC.
Once NetSupport RAT is downloaded onto the user’s computer, hackers can remotely connect to a user’s device to steal data and install more malware. There are no Pokémon NFTs included, just direct access to your most precious files by people that will probably use it for the worst!
While those with general critical thinking skills when it comes to how truly nasty the internet is may know better than to take this website seriously, the website’s design is pretty clean and could fool young people who love Pokémon or anybody desperate to earn Gunko FunBux from virtual card-based cockfights.
As of writing, it looks like the original website is still live (although our office computers have rightfully blocked access to it as it could sniff a security threat from a mile away) but a second website connected to the first has been taken offline.
From fake Pokémon NFT games claiming to be official The Pokémon Company products and turning out to not even be a real game, to fake Pokémon NFT games being fronts for vicious computer viruses, it looks like this is just the beginning for fake NFT projects related to Pokémon being the putrid hogwash of NFT “gaming”.
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