Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/30/starcraft_2_trojan_warning_webroot/
Beware the blizzard of torrents of Starcraft 2
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Posted in Games, 30th July 2010 09:36 GMT
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Starcraft 2 [1] was released this week and at the hefty RRP of £45. Many games sites are hopping mad [2] at this, although typically retailers are selling Blizzard's strategy game at £10 less than RRP.
The price is of little consequence to gamers who download pirate versions of SC2 from the torrents.
But beware, says Andrew Brandt [3] of the security company Webroot. Some SC2 torrents appear to "bring along a side dish of malware".
One, supposedly a custom game launcher, drops the Zbot keylogger Trojan, for example.
Nothing new here, but the sub-text is that the aggravation you go through cleaning up an infected PC much outweighs the cost of buying a retail copy of SC2. Few torrent users will take notice.
Despite the piracy, Blizzard will make a killing [4] from SC2. It is expected to sell 3m copies this week and 7m by the end of the year.