Dynostopia was a remote access trojan (RAT) disguised as a futuristic first-person shooter game created by a Steam user under the name Matt ツ that was released as a beta test under Steam Greenlight in 2015. It was pulled from Greenlight after the truth about the "game" was revealed and it affected about 440 users.
Description
The description is taken from the Steam page of this so-called "game" before it was taken down:
This is a post-apocalyptic story about two characters who went on a long journey through the lands that people left because of the epidemy. There were not many survivors in the world and those who came through had to return to the era of agriculture and gathering. We will play for the main character whose way runs through the abandoned towns and cities of Russia, vast fields and forests of the country. Who are we, where are we from and where are we going? We will know it only at the end!
This game made in a quest style with some elements of a shooter.
Information on the game will be updated. Since the project is in an active stage of development, i [sic] will be looking to gather beta testers. will also be posting new screenshots and video gameplay. Thank for your attention!
Why It's a Post-Apocalyptic Craphole
- As previously stated, the "game" was actually a trojan horse. Launching the game's EXE from the RAR archive (which was downloaded from a sketchy website given on its Greenlight page) would effectively give access to your computer to hackers, who would then proceed to forcibly upvote, favorite, and leave a positive review for the game on Steam under your profile before defacing your Steam profile description to read "Proud supporter of the Dynostpoia [sic] gameplay beta trials! Get your beta trial now!"
- Any webcams connected to the computer would also be hacked into, a keylogger would be installed, and the user would be forcibly logged out and unable to log back in thanks to an administrator password being required.
- In fact, a Reddit user named /u/toilet-roll found out that the game contained malicious automated scripts, further proving that it's malware.[1]
- To make matters even worse, the malware would steal sensitive info and corrupt all of the victim's files, forcing them to format their hard drive and reinstall Windows.
- The "game" won't boot up as a proper game since it's purposely malware.
- About 440 users fell for and were affected by this scam to the point where Steam completely removed this "game" from the sale.
- Additionally, the person responsible for creating the malware, Matt ツ, hacked into someone's eleven-year-old account to submit the game to Greenlight without being seen as suspicious.
- Overall, this is one of the reasons for Steam's lack of quality control similar to Google Play.