New evil ransomware encrypts your game saves

There’s a new piece of ransomware on the block, and it’s targeting gamers.

Anti-malware company Bromium Labs says the virus encrypts game saves, mods, and other files. It then pops up with a scary red banner demanding you pay… or else. Meaning you’ll never get your level 50 battle mage back.

Once again, computers are being infected due to an exploit in Adobe Flash.

Dozens of different games are affected including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Steam

“We haven’t seen gamers being targeted by ransomware until now,” Bromium Labs said in a press release. “Many young adults may not have any crucial documents or source code on their machine (even photographs are usually stored at Tumblr or Facebook), but surely most of them have a Steam account with a few games and an iTunes account full of music.”

The best way to safeguard your saves is to periodically back them up to an external drive. Bromium notes that the virus may compromise online cloud storage. Also make sure your browsers are completely up to date. It may also be a good idea to just uninstall Flash entirely from your computer.