Were you to have downloaded a specific torrent file of the new game, Watch Dogs, you might find you were getting more than you bargained for, as it contains a Bitcoin miner to use your system resources for the gain of others.
The app installs itself, then uses the name winlogin.exe to run, which is similar to a standard Windows process called winlogon.exe. The malware uses around 25 per cent of your system resources and is mining Bitcoins for the industrious person who decided to plonk it in a torrent for one of the year's most anticipated games.
Users who downloaded and installed the release claiming to be from well-known group "skidrow" have reported various problems. Some are seeing bluescreens, some are just seeing the slowdown you'd expect from a process using 25 per cent of available systems resources. No one has reported that this release actually works though.
There's really not much of a surprise here, if you download torrents you have to expect that there's a chance a malicious user might have done something naughty to it. If you think you might be infected with this Bitcoin miner, then a virus scanner should help you find out for sure. One user of the imageboard 4Chan reports that the malicious file is stored in c:\users\username\AppData\Roaming\OaPja. You'll see two files, winlogin.exe and the miner itself, called ltc.exe.
Watch Dogs is out tomorrow for download and costs about £40.
Read more: Watch Dogs hands-on review
Via: SlashGear