Steam Gamers Fall Prey to Malicious PowerShell Commands

Gamers on Steam forums are being targeted by scammers who pose as helpful commenters offering troubleshooting advice. These attackers suggest running PowerShell commands to fix technical issues, but in reality, they're tricking victims into installing a crypto miner.

The malicious command is disguised as a harmless PowerShell script, and when executed, it downloads a legitimate mining tool called XMRig from the attacker's server. This tool hijacks the device's computing power for Monero mining, with the resulting cryptocurrency going straight to the scammers.

Experts warn that gamers are reluctant to install security software on their devices, citing the myth that antivirus slows down gaming performance. However, this is not supported by research, and running an antivirus while playing does not have a significant impact on performance.