Video game developers are increasingly investing time and resources in protecting these products, nevertheless, hacker groups always find a way to remove pre-installed security restrictions to release pirate versions after a new video game is released, digital forensics researchers claim.
This time the affected product is Need for Speed: Heat, the latest release of the famous car racing video game franchise. According to the developers, this new installment features notable improvements in graphics, a new story and update of the controls.
According to researchers in digital forensics, since its release thousands of gamers have browsed the Internet in search of the cracked version of the game and, despite the fact that multiple websites, specialized forums and YouTube channels claim to have the answer, almost all of these claims are fake, as these pages contained only clickbait, which was verified by CrackWatch, a platform dedicated to check the security status of newly released video games.
As reported, this video game has the digital rights security system known as Denuvo, so the product has protection against copying, at least until hackers manage to remove this system from the video game code.
Although Denuvo is one of the most advanced video game security systems, various hacker groups have already managed to eliminate this protection from games, besides that the system is not very popular with gamers, as they consider that their implementation increases resource consumption on a console, as well as affecting game performance.
Although Need for Speed seemed to have advanced protections, important hacker groups such as CPY, Voski, Reloaded, CODEX, among others, set their sights on this video game, so the release of the cracked version became a matter of time.
Finally, according to digital forensic specialists from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS), it was only 49 days after the release of the game for hackers to release a cracked version. Rumors were confirmed by CrackWatch in an update to the state of the game.
It is necessary to remind video game enthusiasts that, while resorting to these versions saves a few dollars, the risk of installing a cracked video game is very high, as it can actually be dangerous malware variants capable of completely compromise the infected system.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
