Steam game accused of turning PCs into cryptocurrency miners • Eurogamer.net

Steam has come under fire in recent months for opening its store to hundreds of decidedly dodgy games, and it seems this policy is once again hurting customers, as one game on the Steam store is reportedly turning players’ computers into a cryptocurrency-mining botnet.

The offending game in question is called Abstractism – an indie which masquerades as a “trivial platformer” but seems to be doing something far more insidious. Multiple players have left negative reviews with screenshots showing evidence the game installs a Trojan virus “disguised as as a steam.exe process” along with malware under the name “abstractism launcher”. After seeing these reports, YouTuber SidAlpha investigated the game and found these viruses are likely installing cryptocurrency mining software. This presents a huge risk for players, as according to CSO, “cryptojacking” can damage computer performance, increase electricity bills, and even infect cloud infrastructure.