Hacked video game accounts are worth 1 billion a year. And tow Fortnite

ROME – Fortnite, the popular video game protagonist of a dispute with Apple, is also at the center of an illegal market: that of hacked video game accounts, which overall is worth 1 billion dollars a year. To say it is a report by the analysts of Night Lion Security . Every day, tens of thousands of Fortnite accounts are stolen from their rightful owners and sold on the black market. Each profile sells for an average of $ 200-250 but there are some with “skins” – that is, avatar customizations – of particular value, which increase the price of an account up to a few thousand dollars.

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by TIZIANO TONIUTTI

August 14, 2020

And Fortnite, which has 350 million registered gamers worldwide, is not the only video game sought on the black market for accounts. Also popular are Minecraft, RuneScape and Roblox. Together, the four games result in deals worth $ 700 million. Video games “are among the most profitable hacked accounts on the black market”, experts point out, according to which the trading of these profiles “has evolved into a billion-dollar-a-year clandestine industry, with its own chain of fully functional supply “.

In this context “the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic seems to accelerate the request for accounts, with people who are not at work and have all the time to use video games”, analysts highlight, while video game developers “to date they have not yet been successful in slowing this shadow economy, which yields six or seven figure annual revenues to the best hackers and salespeople. “