The Pokémon Trading Card Game allows you to conveniently play the Pokémon card game digitally, along with your own virtual card packs in which you may be lucky enough to get rare collectibles. The opposite is the Pokémon Card Game, which despite the suggestive name is not a real game. Instead, it’s an NFT project where users should have received NFTs from the various Pokémon cards, which they could then in turn sell to other NFT enthusiasts.
Users wanted Pokémon NFTs, only got headaches
An NFT Pokémon deck doesn’t sound all that unrealistic, but it turns out this was just a scam where the hackers wanted to get your data. There are no actual NFTs to be picked up here by clicking the “Play on PC” button on the Pokemon Card Game website. Instead, a program is downloaded which, after installation, anchors the “NetSupport Manager” deep into your system. The program actually has a Pokémon icon and the associated file information, which is why some users were probably fooled by this.
The tool gives the hackers almost unlimited access to your system, which of course can cause considerable damage, as reported by ASEC, among others. Not only can your data be stolen, but any other malware can also be installed. In the worst case, the tool can even spread across your network.
NetSupport Manager is actually a legitimate program, but it has been used on a number of occasions by third parties to gain unauthorized access to other users’ PCs. You can get a closer look at exactly how Pokémon Card Game did it read at ASEC.
