Tag Archive for: Minecraft

Russian Propaganda on Ukraine Appears in Minecraft and Other Video Games

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Russian propaganda is spreading into the world’s video games.

In Minecraft, the immersive game owned by Microsoft, Russian players re-enacted the battle for Soledar, a city in Ukraine that Russian forces captured in January, posting a video of the game on their country’s most popular social media network, VKontakte.

A channel on the Russian version of World of Tanks, a multiplayer warfare game, commemorated the 78th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in May with a recreation of the Soviet Union’s parade of tanks in Moscow in 1945. On Roblox, the popular gaming platform, a user created an array of Interior Ministry forces in June to celebrate the national holiday, Russia Day.

These games and adjacent discussion sites like Discord and Steam are becoming online platforms for Russian agitprop, circulating to new, mostly younger audiences a torrent of propaganda that the Kremlin has used to try to justify the war in Ukraine.

In this virtual world, players have adopted the letter Z, a symbol of the Russian troops who invaded last year; embraced legally specious Russian territorial claims in Crimea and other places; and echoed President Vladimir V. Putin’s efforts to denigrate Ukrainians as Nazis and blame the West for the conflict.

“Glory to Russia,” declared a video tutorial on how to construct a flagpole with a Russian flag on Minecraft. It showed a Russian flag over a cityscape labeled Luhansk, one of the Ukrainian provinces that Russia has illegally annexed.

“The gaming world is really a platform that can impact public opinion, to reach an audience, especially young populations,” said Tanya Bekker, a researcher at ActiveFence, a cybersecurity company that identified several examples of Russian propaganda on Minecraft for The New York Times.

Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, disclosed in April that the company’s security teams had identified recent Russian efforts “basically to penetrate some of these gaming communities,” citing examples in Minecraft and in Discord discussion groups. He said Microsoft had advised governments, which he did not name, about them, but he played down their significance.

“In truth, it’s not the No. 1 thing we should worry…

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How to invite friends to Minecraft singleplayer without opening to LAN

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Modified May 18, 2023 04:14 GMT

When enjoying a Minecraft world in singleplayer, it’s possible to invite friends to make it multiplayer. However, the Java and Bedrock editions of the game differ in the way this is accomplished. Bedrock uses Xbox Live to invite friends, and Java requires players to be on the same Local Area Network (LAN) that the world is opened up to.

Thanks to a great Minecraft: Java Edition mod known as Essential, players don’t have to worry about connecting their friends to the same network to enjoy multiplayer on a traditionally singleplayer world. The mod also adds cosmetics for players to equip to their avatar, a screenshot manager, and a handy friends list for communication.

If Minecraft fans want to invite their friends to their world without using the “open to LAN” function, Essential makes the process easy.

Steps to invite friends to your Minecraft world using the Essential mod

Minecraft’s Essential mod is particularly interesting among its counterparts, as it doesn’t require a mod loader like Forge, Fabric, or CurseForge to operate. However, if fans do use a loader for their modding needs, Essential has versions for them.

For the sake of simplicity, it’s worth covering the basic way to install Essential via the Windows and MacOS installer, adding friends, and inviting them to a singleplayer world. The entire process only takes a few moments and should make the ability to play any world in multiplayer without a server incredibly straightforward.

Here’s how to install and invite friends to a Minecraft world with the Essential mod:

  1. Head to the URL https://essential.gg/download and click on the link to install either…

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New Botnet Targeting Minecraft Servers Poses Potential Enterprise Threat

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The persistence and spread of a newly identified botnet targeting private Minecraft Java servers has far wider ramifications for enterprises than bumming out a Biome.

Microsoft researchers revealed in a report published Dec. 16 that this new botnet is used to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Minecraft servers, which might sound like kid stuff. But enterprises should take note because of the botnet’s ability to target both Windows and Linux devices, spread quickly, and avoid detection, the Microsoft team added.

It starts with a user downloading a malicious downloads of “cracked” Windows licenses.

“The botnet spreads by enumerating default credentials on internet-exposed Secure Shell (SSH)-enabled devices,” the Defender team reported. “Because IoT devices are commonly enabled for remote configuration with potentially insecure settings, these devices could be at risk to attacks like this botnet.“

The threat researchers suggest that organizations harden their device networks against these kinds of threats.

The group’s analysis revealed most of the infected devices were in Russia.

Enterprises Beware

Factors including the sheer number of potential server targets and the general lack of cybersecurity protections on private Minecraft servers make this botnet something security teams should take seriously, Patrick Tiquet, vice president of security architecture at Keeper Security, tells Dark Reading.

“The concern in this scenario is that there are a large number of servers that can potentially be compromised and then weaponized against other systems, including enterprise assets,” Tiquet explains. “Gaming servers such as Minecraft are typically managed by private individuals who may or may not be interested in or capable of patching and following cybersecurity best-practices. As a result, this vulnerability could continue unmitigated on a large scale for an extended period of time and could potentially be leveraged to target enterprises in the future.”

Beyond this particular malware, Microsoft’s recommendations are a good idea for protecting the enterprise from all sorts of botnets besides just the Minecraft-focused sort, according to Vulcan Cyber’s Mike Parkin.

“They’re…

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Over 155K Minecraft Players Get Infected With Malware / Digital Information World

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The rate of growth of the gaming industry has spurred many cyber attackers to use these games as a platform for launching malware campaigns, and it turns out that Minecraft is one of their most popular choices with all things having been considered and taken into account. Over 131,000 Minecraft users on PC were infected with malware, and 26,000 mobile users were also infected which brings the total number of Minecraft players who were attacked by malware past the 150,000 mark.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that malicious actors seem to be disproportionately targeting players who prefer Minecraft. The second highest number of malware infections belonged to Roblox with just under 39,000, so Minecraft users are over four times likelier to get infected by malware than Roblox players.

In the world of mobile gaming this disparity is even more pronounced. Roblox came in second again, but with only 1,186 infections reported so far. That is only a small fraction of the 26,000 Minecraft players who had malware infiltrate their systems which suggests that playing Minecraft could expose a user to far more cyber attacks than might have been the case otherwise.

Around 90% of the total malware infections seen in mobile games went to Minecraft users, and 76% of all the malware was from the notorious RedLine Stealer malware family. It works by stealing browser data and skimming passwords because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing malicious actors to lock users out of their own accounts.

It should be mentioned that the downloading of so called cracked games might be contributing to this trend. These games are free since they can be downloaded through piracy, and the people who are offering these free downloads often include malware in the source code. This can allow malicious actors to spy on users without them realizing it, and if users started using 2FA more frequently such forms of malware might become less useful to cyber attackers and hackers in the future.

H/T: Securelist

Read next: The smartphone market was at its lowest in the third quarter due to the global economic crisis

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