A popular platform for trading customizable items has been hacked. Hackers have transferred game skins Counter-Strike the most expensive, but stolen, virtual weapons and blueprints are currently blocked.
It’s one of the biggest heists in video game history. Hackers stole game skins Counter-Strike – personalization elements for avatars or weapons – for a total value of approximately 6 million dollars (approximately 5,900,000 euros). Criminals attacked CS.MONEY, a popular skin swapping platform specializing in this online shooter game, on August 13, 2022.
The company explains that the hackers were able to access the mobile authentication files used for Steam accounts, the largest video game market. So we don’t know how the hackers recovered the identifiers: through a trap or a vulnerability?
Once logged into the platform, the evildoers detected the bots responsible for conducting the transactions and started sending the precious skins to their account. To cover their tracks, they started communicating and sharing virtual items with many other profiles, giving their skins to ordinary players as well as famous steamers. In total, the hackers recovered nearly 20,000 items. Many skins are worth several thousand dollars. For the most expensive, it can go up to 100,000 euros, the rarest in the game.
A community of united players
Suspicious transactions have been identified from Arrow CSGO account before being confirmed by the CS.MONEY platform. The site is not yet available, the company is trying to fix all the security holes.
Now, what will hackers do with such loot? Not much, to be honest. While some items may have been resold during the first moments of the cyber attack, most of the skins are now locked. The community of Counter-Strike – one million monthly players and 35 million active users – reacted quickly and listed stolen weapons and designs. In solidarity with CS.MONEY, several competing platforms have blocked the purchase of these skins. The stolen items are therefore unusable for the time being.
Contacted by Numerama, company spokesman Timofey Sobolevsky said that ” hackers underestimated the CS: GO vendor community. They didn’t expect so many people to join our efforts to find these hacker skins and accounts among all the recipients of stolen items “.
In his opinion, ” this attack seems more and more an attempt to massively damage CS.MONEY as well as users who have lost their skins, without further financial steps. As you can see, hackers have focused on getting as many skins as possible without focusing on additional measures to sell them. The company is offering $ 100,000 to anyone who fixes the security issues that led to the breach.
This six million dollar heist is the biggest ever for the game Counter-Strikeand more generally, one of the most impressive in the video game industry. The previous record for this title was two million dollars and took place last June. The hacker had targeted a single wealthy player based in the UAE. The skin market is set to grow in the future as the gaming industry moves towards free models with paid customization. The safety of these elements deserves to be strengthened to avoid similar incidents in the future.