According to PANews, a security company called vx-underground has discovered a malicious software targeting gamers in the past few days. The unidentified threat actors are using information-stealing software to target individuals who cheat in games by paying for cheats. Some of the affected accounts are not cheaters, but users who use gaming software to improve network latency, VPNs, and controller enhancement software. The fraudulent activity was discovered when a Call of Duty cheat software provider called PhantomOverlay noticed unauthorized purchases on user accounts. The cheat software provider was the first to discover the fraudulent activity and contacted the suspected victims. The scope of the affected users is vast, with Activision Blizzard working with the cheat software provider to help users affected by this large-scale information theft. The estimated impact is as follows: 3,662,627 Battlenet accounts stolen, 561,183 Activision accounts stolen, 117,366 Elite PVP player accounts stolen, 572,831 UnknownCheats accounts stolen, and 1,365 PhantomOverlay accounts stolen.
When PhantomOverlay's management asked Elite PVPers about the compromised accounts, Elite PVPers confirmed that they had identified over 40,000 compromised valid user accounts. These appear to be newly stolen credentials and are not present in previously publicly available credential dumps. However, due to the large amount of data, it is impossible to thoroughly review duplicate data. In addition, affected users have already started reporting that they are victims of cryptocurrency theft - their Electrum BTC wallets have been emptied. There is currently no information on the amount of stolen funds.