A man in the United States implanted malware through Steam games to steal cryptocurrency assets, infecting about 8,000 devices

The U.S. federal prosecutors have charged a 21-year-old Florida man, Zyaire Wilkins, accusing him of implanting malware to steal cryptocurrency assets in at least 8 games with accomplices between May 2024 and February 2026, spreading it through gaming platforms, resulting in approximately 8,000 devices being infected and about 80 cryptocurrency wallets being stolen, with the amount involved exceeding $220,000.

The indictment documents show that the games involved include BlockBlasters, Chemia, Dashverse, DashFPS, Lampy, Lunara, PirateFi, and Tokenova. Some of these games had previously been removed from Steam due to security risks. Investigators stated that the suspect promoted these games through platforms such as Discord, Telegram, X, and LinkedIn, luring users to download and install them, after which the malware stole sensitive information from victims and siphoned off cryptocurrency wallet assets.

The FBI indicated that law enforcement identified the suspect through on-chain fund flow analysis and digital payment records. The investigation found that his associated cryptocurrency wallet had purchased over 150 gift cards on the cryptocurrency gift card platform Bitrefill, including Uber Eats gift cards, ultimately helping investigators confirm his phone number and address. The case has now been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.