Security1 distinct publisher3 min readPublished
Malwarebytes has now documented three different GTA 6 scam payloads since June, so awareness copy written around one lure is describing a page the operators have already rebuilt. The drainer arrives before any click.
The Watch · Security desk

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Calling this zero-click describes the load, not the loss. The drainer executes as the page renders, before any button press [2]. Nothing leaves a wallet until the visitor connects one and signs a transaction the script hands back [8]. That gap is the whole intervention, because the price tags are fiction: the in-page Solana routine never charges the advertised amount, it reads the balance, reserves enough for the network fee, and queues the remainder to the attacker [7]. On the arithmetic, the $50 card price and the 1 SOL option worth about $102 when Malwarebytes looked [4] put the crypto route at roughly twice the cost of the same nonexistent file [1]. Neither figure is ever taken.
The second payload is the one worth tracking. It runs about 2.4 MB, built around a legitimate and widely deployed library for connecting sites to wallets, which is what lets it speak to many wallets instead of one; bolted onto that is code that inventories the connected wallet, prices its assets, reports the details to the operator, and pulls back transactions for the victim to approve [8]. It is configured for Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Base and Fantom, and recognises the major stablecoins on them [9]. That is seven networks against the in-page routine's single chain [3]. Approvals are the part that outlives the visit: depending on what the victim signs, the operator can move tokens and entire NFT collections later rather than immediately [10].
The build quality says something about how the operation is organised. The countdown, the Leonida map and the release grid are accurate and match Rockstar's own announcements of November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S with no PC version [3]. The sales copy misspells "download" and refers to GTA IV [16]. The footer states the page offers no purchase, download or payment, sitting directly under two payment buttons, and the facts grid calls the game console-only while the FAQ promises a PC download after purchase [15]. Malwarebytes reads it as a legitimate-looking fan template reused with a pitch pasted on by someone who did not proofread [16]. The drainer is the expensive component. The front end is a template, which is why the lure has changed three times [1] and the objective has not.
There is also a filter in front of the whole thing. The script pulls its settings from the operator's server, and where the relevant option is on, it geolocates the visitor by IP and turns away anyone from a fixed list of ten countries including Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, showing a region-unavailable message and a blank page [11] [4]. The setting is named CIS_Protection in the code [12]. Malwarebytes notes that excluding that group is a long-standing convention in criminal tooling, usually read as an attempt to avoid local law enforcement, and declines to draw conclusions about who is running this [13].
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
A separate script of around 2.4 MB includes a legitimate, widely used tool for connecting websites to cryptocurrency wallets, allowing it to work with many wallets rather than one; added malicious code inventories the connected wallet, calculates what its assets are worth, reports the details to the attacker, and retrieves transactions for the victim to approve.
Malwarebytes says it has seen scam sites built around Grand Theft Auto VI targeting visitors in three different ways this year.
The site Malwarebytes examined this week looks like a GTA 6 fan countdown site but offers to sell a leaked copy of the game, and it loads a wallet drainer the moment a visitor arrives.
The page carries a live countdown to November 19, a map of Leonida and a grid of release facts; the release details match Rockstar's own announcements that GTA 6 is scheduled for November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no PC version announced.
Two offers sit among the accurate material: one sells a leaked copy for $50, the other offers the same thing for 1 SOL, worth about $102 at the time of writing.
In June, Malwarebytes examined sites selling GTA 6 early access for hundreds of dollars in cryptocurrency; buyers paid, got nothing, and could not reverse the payment.
Distinct publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.
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Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
First-hand code reading, nobody's second look
The specifics are the kind you only get by opening the files: a 2.4 MB script, seven named chains, a configuration flag called CIS_Protection, a Solana address in the page that appears nowhere in the script. That is strong primary work. It is also unrepeatable from the outside as published — Malwarebytes names no domain, hash or attacker address, so a reader who wants to verify or block has nothing to act on.
One page seen, three payloads counted, no scale
What has actually been observed is a single live site plus two earlier lures in June and August. Nothing in the reporting speaks to how many visitors reached them, how many wallets connected, or how much moved. The defensible reading is persistence — the operation keeps rebuilding around the same release date — not prevalence.
Undersold, filed under the wrong headline
Malwarebytes could have made far more of this and didn't. It refuses to name a crew from the block list, concedes it cannot identify the drainer product, and leaves its most transferable finding — a rented drainer whose payout address and geofence live on someone else's server, so the same machinery can be reskinned behind any lure within hours — sitting quietly in a section about wallet valuation. GTA 6 is the disposable part of this story and it got the title.
The finder also sells the fix
Malwarebytes is both the sole source and a vendor whose product addresses exactly this class of threat, and the piece never says so. That is ordinary for security research — this work rarely gets published anywhere else — but it shapes the packaging: a consumer-recognisable brand-name lure at the top, the drainer-as-a-service plumbing further down, and no admission that the page is unnamed partly because naming it invites argument.
Precise, checkable in principle, unchecked in fact
Specific and unverified is an uncomfortable pairing. Every technical assertion is narrow enough that a second researcher could confirm or demolish it within a day, and none has; the ledger of what is known also thins out exactly where readers care most, at scale and losses. Our copy of the piece even breaks off mid-sentence where it starts comparing this site's exposure to the capped losses of the June scams.