You might have jumped for joy if you saw an email sitting in your inbox from a self-claimed ‘advertising agency’ working with CD Projekt Red, and they are offering you exclusive beta access to the hotly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077.
Of course, you’ll still need to offer some money for it, but they can totally ‘get you access’.
CD Projekt Red took to Twitter to warn people about the scam that has begun making its way around the internet during the past few days, and it’s only picking up Steam (heh) as time continues.
We do not have plans for that. Sorry!
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) July 30, 2020
Forewarned is forearmed; CD Projekt Red isn’t giving out exclusive beta access to anyone that they’ve publically announced, and putting it on your wishlist, unfortunately, doesn’t make you a hot commodity for the developers.
Even massive names are being stonewalled from the legendary Polish studio: Cyberpunk 2077 is currently tightly locked up, and will likely remain as such until moments before the official launch (which is now in November, as the title apparently failed a T90-day check again).
2/2 Same goes for content creators. We always reach out directly from @ cdprojektred com domain. If you are being contacted by a third party claiming to be working with us (an ad agency for example), you can assume it's not genuine.
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) July 30, 2020
Of course, this wouldn’t be a massive problem is Cyberpunk 2077 hasn’t been hyped up to the point that it rivals the second coming, but it is; thus it has.
Yep, someone sent me this scam email where it's literally just an image with a WhatsApp number in it (edited for obvious reason). pic.twitter.com/3iBiWuKcbW
— BTCafe (@BehindTheCard) July 31, 2020
The scam has worked more than it should, however, as scams tend to; Cyberpunk 2077 is drawing in the wrong crowd as the title already appears to have worldwide recognition. Scams are moving beyond the format of asking money, and using directed attacks to get users to download fake files with worms and trojans.
Why would someone pretending to be from CD Projekt Red pretend to want my music for Cyberpunk 2077??
took me three days to realise this was fake but I've been stringing them along anyway, nice offer of a hundred million euros @CDPROJEKTRED cheers pic.twitter.com/k2x4yIYOyK
— disasteradio, eyeliner and a secret third thing (@disasteradio) November 12, 2019
These aren’t ultimately too different from the infamous Nigerian Price emails of the early 2000’s, but it’s always important that you should look at precisely what domain an email is coming from. Emails from ProjektRed will have that domain, being x@cdprojektred.com; Paypal phishers work the same way, and you can avoid it by reading the full domain within the email: it isn’t PayPal.
All things considered, this is simply showing how popular video games have gotten within the past decade, to world-wide understanding to the point that it’s a safe bet for identity phishing individuals to use it as a targeting means. This is easily countered by staying safe when you’re online; a tactic that shouldn’t be too outlandish for those that are interested in an upcoming video game featuring cyberpunk settings, dystopic technologies, and brutal business tactics.
Although perhaps 2020, as a whole, is the beta testing for Cyberpunk 2077 with dictators running rampant and disease having people shelter in place, protests against police brutality resulting in abductions in the United States. Maybe this is all just a colossal marketing scheme.
