Be careful if you plan to buy Hogwarts Legacy! Taking advantage of the success of the game, scammers are stepping up their imaginations to scam players, with fraudulent web pages and fake download links.
Everyone in video games – and not only! – has been in turmoil since the release of Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy February 10 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series – it will later arrive on PS4, Xbox One and Switch. The new RPG from Avalanche Software perfectly captures the magic of the wonderful world of Harry Potter paying great attention to detail, while offering a large and rich world, dynamic gameplay and a good lifespan. But the video game is at the heart of a controversy because of the transphobic comments made by the author of the saga, JK Rowling. Although she was not involved in the development of the game, a proportion of the sales revenue will still go to her, leading some people to be unwilling to spend a single penny – or rather Gallion – that might come back to her. , and by extension to the struggle it leads. In this case, two solutions are possible: cancel the game… or download it illegally.
Suffice to say, the conditions are perfect for cybercriminals and scammers, especially since Hogwarts Legacy is not only aimed at the usual community of players, but also at fans of the license – the famous Potterheads – who are not necessarily familiar with the dangers of downloading – but not only! Moreover, not everyone can spend 80 euros on a game – not to mention the price of the devices to run it. In short, all the conditions are met for it to be a real carnage…
Hogwarts Legacy: illegal download links with malware
The first to sound the alarm is the Italian branch of the cybersecurity company Kaspersky which, in a report published on February 8explains that he discovered numerous illegal download links for the PC version of the game – including before its release – containing malware, ranging from adware, which displays advertisements on the screen, to trojans, which silently collect information on the user.
The company NordVPN has also noticed this proliferation of fraudulent links around the game. Marijus Briedis, cybersecurity expert within the company, explains in a press release that “Global demand for Hogwarts Legacy and recent changes in the video game industry have given hackers a gateway into the world of Harry Potter.” Her popularity “offers cybercriminals the perfect way to tempt fans with fake download links promising a free version of the game. Once they click on these links, they risk infecting their device with a form of malware that can be used to track them or steal personal data“. This is why it is essential to only buy and download games from official sites and platforms.
Hogwarts Legacy Scams: Fake Ads and Clone Sites
But even people who are ready to buy Hogwarts Legacy can be scammed. Indeed, some fraudulent sites use the visual identity of famous stores in order to mislead Internet users. Even worse : these trapped pages are sometimes highlighted from Google Ads, the sponsorship allowing them to be referenced at the top of the search engine. So be careful with domain names: sometimes, one extra letter can change everything!
Cybercriminals go even further since they try to obtain “sponsored” videos with Youtubers via phishing attempts. This is what happened to American YouTuber Quinton Rewiew, who received a “professional” email offering to partner with Avalanche Software and Warner Bros. By infiltrating popular people’s devices and accounts, hackers take advantage of popular people’s legitimacy to spread their scams more widely. Two birds with one stone, and Accio money !