People are slipping malware into Grand Theft Auto V mods

You need only look at the vibrant modding community that many games have to understand what makes PC gaming so great, but it’s not all fun and games. Sometimes, as with a few Grand Theft Auto V mods, some not-so-friendly people will ruin the fun by slipping in some malware. At least two mods for the game have been found to contain keylogger malware that tracks your computer usage. 

Mods! They’re a big part of what makes PC gaming so great. They’re an even bigger part of the Grand Theft Auto franchise’s success on PCs. But malicious no-goodniks out there have seized advantage of the current spotlight on GTA V to slip nasty keylogger malware into some of the mods available for the game—including the otherwise awesome-looking “Angry Planes” mod that made the rounds on the big gaming sites this week. GTA Forums member aboutseven first noticed Angry Planes misbehaving, Kotaku reports. He became suspicious when he noticed an odd C# compiler program running in his system processes, sending and receiving data across the web. Further digging revealed a Fade.exe executable buried in his PC’s Temporary Files folder, keeping logs of his activity and altering the Windows registry to silently launch at system boot. Gulp. Aboutseven eradicated Fade.exe from his system, but noticed it sprung back to life whenever he ran GTA V with mods installed. After a bit more trial and error, he pinpointed the Angry Planes mod as the culprit. Another mod dubbed “No Clip” was also found to contain the malware.