New Ransomware Asks Users to Play PUBG

It’s no secret to anyone who’s paying attention that PUBG is having a rough time as of late. Of course, I don’t mean ACTUALLY rough, as they’ve still got millions of dedicated users and are rolling in money hand-over-fist… but it feels rough because now they’re not the number one Battle Royale game on the market. It’s not surprising that they would go out of their way to try to improve their numbers, but some fans are going to lengths that not even the PUBG team would dare try.

Namely, producing a type of Ransomware that will encrypt your files unless you play an hour of PUBG.

Yep, it’s real, having been discovered and documented by MalwareHunterTeam. Like most ransomware, it will render your files inaccessible when it infects a computer, but unlike most ransomware – where you need to pay a certain amount of money to the hackers to get your file back – this one just asks that you play PUBG for 60 minutes (although even playing for three minutes is enough to get your files back).

Sounds stupid? Don’t worry, it gets even dumber. The malware will only encrypt the files on your desktop, so most of your computer will remain untouched. Oh, and if you don’t own or even like Battlegrounds, the creators gave you an alternative solution: you can immediately unlock your files with an unlock code that they share with you the instant the malware runs.

So yeah. It’s not a serious threat. It’s just a joke. The person who discovered it isn’t even sure if it’s spreading or if it’s a very local, one-time thing.

Malware is a pretty serious problem these days, but hey, I can acknowledge a good joke when I see one, and this is pretty funny. Still, let’s hope the folks at PUBG aren’t too inspired…