Fortnite V-Buck scams at an all-time high as hackers take over reputable sites 

Fortnite scams are occurring at an alarming frequency right now. Thousands of websites from government agencies and elsewhere have been hijacked recently. They are offering scams and hoaxes centered on Epic Games' battle royale as well as Roblox and more. If kids enter their details, they can earn V-Bucks in Fortnite, or so the scam promises.

V-Bucks scams have been around for a very long time, and they've never worked out. They are particularly malicious and well-disguised. Here's what we know.

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Fortnite V-Bucks scams are getting intensely clever

Zach Edwards, a researcher for Human Security, says the activity can be traced back to affiliate users of one advertising company. This company acts as a service that sends web traffic to a range of online advertisers, thus allowing people to sign up and use its systems.

At any given point, he can find tons of websites with reputable domains, such as .edu, .gov and .org, being compromised by these very scams. Edwards, who has been studying these scams for three years, said via Wired:

“This group is what I would consider to be the number one group at bulk compromising infrastructure across the internet and hosting scams on it and other types of exploits."

The schemes and ways people make money off of innocent Fortnite players vary, but each of the websites is taken over in a similar way: weakness at the backend of a website are exploited by attackers.

They will then upload malicious PDFs, which Edwards calls “poison PDFs." These are designed to show up in searches and claim to have free Fortnite skins, V-Bucks, Robux, and more.

It's not just Fortnite that's used, though. Cheap streams of popular movies and tons of other video game rewards and currency frequently get pushed. These are not legitimate, and there's no proper way to earn V-Bucks or skins outside of the game itself.

For this reason, it is imperative that you do not trust any scams of this nature. Epic Games always notes that they'll never ask for your personal information, so if something does, it's not real. Furthermore, if the V-Bucks aren't earned in-game or by Epic Games, they're not legitimate. Be very careful with these.