The Philippine National Police Cybercrime Unit is urging citizens to be wary of play-to-earn (P2E) games that criminals are exploiting.
Play-to-earn games are a hacker tool
The Philippines’ anti-cybercrime unit, the National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP ACG), says play-to-earn (P2E) games are increasingly being used to steal cryptocurrencies and digital assets, with the thefts now amounting to millions of dollars.
The warning, published in the latest bulletin, states that the theft of digital assets from unsuspecting victims is carried out via gaming applications. These are programs that lure users with promises of “huge financial benefits.” Such promises usually appear after criminals have managed to establish relationships with victims.
Then (the hackers) introduce victims to an online or mobile game where players supposedly earn cryptocurrency rewards in exchange for certain actions, such as growing “crops” on an animated farm. The mobile games are designed to display fake rewards that accumulate as the victim plays
– the services report.
Once the victim stops depositing cryptocurrency assets into the in-game wallet, cybercriminals seize the funds. The cybercrime unit added that hackers usually get away with such crimes because “cryptocurrencies are relatively new and not well-regulated.”
The advantage of blockchain games over traditional ones
The police bulletin, however, confirms the advantages of cryptocurrency games over their traditional counterparts. It refers to the popular P2E gaming platform Axie Infinity, which, as is known, offers players various ways to make money.
However, the level of investment that is sometimes required to play such games can discourage some players. On the other hand, they can also lose their digital assets if they have transferred them to a “wallet that does not support these assets.”
The newsletter also advises that players can reduce their risk of losing money and being robbed by doing their own research before sending funds. They should also be wary of fake profiles and links that lead to questionable sites.
