Scams that use the developer community of Epic Games, famous for Fortnite, to lead to pirated sites are rampant.



Regulations against pirated sites are progressing, and in addition to blocking or shutting down sites, efforts are also being made to prevent pirated sites from appearing higher in search engine results. However, it has been reported that a method of posting links to pirated sites on the ``real

Epic Games developer forum'' and displaying the links at the top of search results is becoming widespread.

Spammers Use Epic Games Website to Promote 'Piracy' Scams * TorrentFreak
https://torrentfreak.com/spammers-use-epic-games-website-to-promote-piracy-scams-231210/



According to TorrentFreak, a news site that reports on pirated copies and copyright issues, many fraudulent links related to copyright infringement were confirmed in the Epic Games developer community for several weeks starting around November 2023. The developer community is divided into pages for each topic such as 'Getting Started & Setup' and 'Programming & Scripting' as shown in the image below, but multiple topics have been added that link to pirated sites and illegal content. Ta.



Although the pirated site itself was not displayed at the top of the search results, ``Posts to the Epic Games developer community that include links to pirated sites'' are displayed at the top of the search results. The image below shows the Epic Games developer community displayed in search results, which leads to pirated links for movies released in 2023, such as ' Hardcore Never Dies ' and ' Napoleon ', as shown by TorrentFreak.



We've seen thousands of fraudulent piracy-related topics added to the Epic Games developer community, naming topics after the latest blockbuster movies, popular music, and other titles to promote pirated content. We are advertising.

Many of the sites linked to by the developer community require you to register your credit card number, etc., under the guise of a 'free account,' and even if you register, there are almost no links that allow you to watch the pirated content you're looking for. there is no. Also, if you click on an alleged illegal download link for music, it is likely that what you are downloading is not a pirated music file, but a virus that can cause all sorts of problems.

Scams that use sites like Epic Games, which are highly rated by search engines and appear high in search results, are called ' SEO hack strategies,' and Google is stepping up efforts to exclude pirated platforms from search results. It has since been considered an effective strategy. Epic Games is not the only target targeted, but other well-known platforms include Facebook, Google Maps, Change.org , the world's largest online signature site, and Steam. In addition, there have been reports in the past of cases where the virus was discovered on university websites and cases where European Union (EU)-related websites were misused.

When TorrentFreak reported the SEO hack to Epic Games, Epic Games said, ``We are investigating this issue and are not accepting any accounts that violate developer community rules and Terms of Service rules, including user submission requirements.'' We plan to take measures against this.'

in Web Service, Posted by log1e_dh