Hackers use Cyberpunk 2077 "Beta" to Phish Gamers

It’s hard to think of the last time a game was so hyped up as Cyberpunk 2077. People are genuinely frothing at the mouth for the chance to get their hands on the newest RPG from the world-famous and well-loved CD Projekt Red, and it’s hard to blame them, since this year has given us so little else to be excited about.

Well, as it turns out, their excitement might be leading them to make some pretty armature cybersecurity mistakes, and thanks to an influx of cases CD Projekt Red has gone to Twitter to urge people to be careful about online scams surrounding their game.
 

If you recently received an email claiming to be granting you beta access to Cyberpunk 2077, it's not from us. Unfortunately, there have been more of these being sent out over the past few weeks. When we contact you via email, it'll always come from @ cdprojektred com address. Same goes for content creators. We always reach out directly from @ cdprojektred com domain. If you are being contacted by a third party claiming to be working with us (an ad agency for example), you can assume it's not genuine.

This is called a “phishing attack”, when a hacker uses an enticing but forged email to trick people either into installing malware onto their system, or hand over valuable information. A phishing attack like this could honestly be either-or, with hackers requesting names and addresses to be given beta access, and then sending over a copy of the “beta” that’s really malware, such as ransomware.

Plus, it’s worth remembering that beta tests are generally only used for multiplayer games, where they need to test servers and connectivity. Single-player games generally just rely on play testers for this kind of thing.

So yeah, use common sense and you’ll be fine.