Bitcoin Mining Info

Reports indicate that one of the most popular pirated copies of Ubisoft’s highly anticipated Watch Dogs is installing Bitcoin-mining malware on the systems of those who download bootlegged versions of the game, causing blue screen crashes, high levels of power consumption, and system instability.

“If you’ve been around the world of piracy for more than a day, you’re probably already familiar with the fact that sometimes torrents come bundled with viruses. Well, the latest trend in viruses is secret Bitcoin miners, and it seems that somebody jumped on the Watch Dogs hype-train to make some quick coin, ” wrote Gamecrastinate’s Peter Downey.

“It feels almost fitting considering the theme of the game, though the irony is probably not as entertaining if you’ve fallen victim to the hack.”

The revelation came after more than a few individuals who downloaded particular unauthorized versions of Watch Dogs reported detecting a process running on their systems flasely designated as winlogin.exe that was consuming as much as 25% of their CPUs’ capacity, which tuned out to be a powerful Bitcoin-miner.

Bitcoin-mining requires a great deal of processing power, and computers maintained by hard-core gamers provide just that, which may have prompted attackers to adulterate on of the many pirated version of Watch Dogs with the Bitcoin-mining malware.

“While it’s advisable to just not download pirated games in the first place, if you happened to have installed a tainted copy of the game you should probably head over to BleepingComputer.com and start downloading some stuff to fix your poor decision. There’s also some directions in the screenshot above, though a full virus scan is definitely recommended.” Downey advised.