NFT hype could ruin your PC — literally
Tokens? Non-fungible threats, more like.
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What you need to know
Curious as to what the heck the non-fungible token craze is about? Looking for authoritative sources of information on the subject? Well, don’t trust that sketchy Excel files entitled “NFT_Items.xlsm” will give you what you’re looking for. That’s a prime example of how NFT hype could ruin your PC — literally.
Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labshas released a report alerting people about a new scheme from threat actors, one that takes full advantage of current non-fungible token hype (viaZDNet). It highlights a mysterious Excel file purporting to be about the NFT scene, though the file’s real purpose is to enable a malicious macro and pump your PC full of malware. Specifically, you’ll score a RAT (Remote Access Trojan).
The RAT will give threat actors access to everything from your PC’s credentials to its webcam, let the bad guys transform your machine into an involuntary mining machine, and even give baddies the power to log your key inputs.
You can read Fortinet’s full report for the technical ins and outs of how the scheme works on a computing level, but these are the broad strokes you should be aware of. As always, don’t trust sketchy files from untrusted sources — especially Excel files (there’s a reason Microsoft has beencracking down hard on Excel macros).
With that said, this report shouldn’t scare you away from NFTs themselves; they’re not the security risk here. Some would go so far as to sayNFTs are being misrepresented in generalthese days. Though, even without malware, there are still plenty of non-fungible projects that aresullying the tech’s reputation.
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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.
