Cyberscams around gaming consoles rise amid roll out of PS5 and Xbox X series

NEW DELHI: Cyberscams around gaming consoles have increased since October, as cybercriminals are trying to turn the launch of new Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5) and Microsoft Xbox Series X consoles to their advantage.

Around 130 suspicious websites mentioning ‘PlayStation’ in their scams and phishing campaigns were detected by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky in October alone, which, as per their estimate, is half the number of similar malicious websites they had detected during the year until October.

Though both Microsoft and Sony have launched new consoles this month, the PlayStation has been targeted a lot more, given its higher sales figures and market share. In India, PlayStation accounted for over 96% of all gaming console sales in September quarter of 2020, as per techARC, a technology market research firm.