Fivetown Explained: CS: GO's Newest Steam Scam

Online scams are all-too-common these days, especially for games as popular as CS: GO. It is one of the top three titles in the world of eSports and therefore attracts a host of players, professional and especially amateur, hoping to become skilled enough to compete for the big prizes.

Picture 1 of Fivetown Explained: CS: GO's Newest Steam Scam

The first time a user becomes aware they are being targeted is when they get a message from someone on their friend list, saying: 'Hey, vote for my csgo team on fivetown - we just need two more votes.'

It may look genuine to some users, but note the lower case on CS: GO, and the lack of capitalisation on Fivetown - both are pointers the message might not be genuine. If you are taken in by it, you will be drawn to click on a link accompanying the message. That will take you to what looks like a convincing login page, asking for your Steam credentials. This is the last chance to avoid becoming a victim, because if you enter your details, you immediately send them to the scammer, to do with as they please.

If you have fallen foul of this ruse, then Steam recommends that you immediately login, and change both your username and password, before implanting their two-factor authentication method. If you are unsure of how to do that, then help can be found on Steam's community support page.

In some countries, eSports have made superstars of the competitors on a national level. Denmark's Prime minister is known to be a fan of Astralis, the hugely popular CS: GO competitors and has regularly visited their headquarters. Exposure on that level makes the game not only hugely popular across a nation, but also a target for scammers.

Denmark is one of the countries where users have fallen foul of the new scam, called the Fivetown Scam. It is not just confined to Scandinavia either – there have been reports of people being targeted in the Netherlands and across mainland Europe, although it is not widespread outside of the continent yet.

Another reason scammers turn to games such as CS: GO is their widespread popularity. Along with Dota 2 and League of Legends, CS: GO forms part of a trinity of games which draw huge prizes for successful players, but similarly attract scammers looking to exploit their widespread use. The LoL 2020 World Championship drew 3.8m viewers at its peak, stretching to 139m hours of viewership across the event. CS: GO saw a spike in its viewership back in April, showing a 113% increase on the previous year.

In an infographic on the most popular eSports tournaments of 2021 by Bwin Sports, they explain how CS: GO's major competition involves 24 teams competing for a $1m prize pool (₫23070m), which attracts plenty of attention from gamers worldwide. Dota 2 also boasts a significant prize pool thought to be around the $40m mark (₫922820m), and the lure of such prizes keeps these three titles right at the top of the eSports world, but also makes that susceptible to a darker element looking to steal details and money.

Dota 2 users were targeted on Steam not long back, with a game called Climber used to pawn lookalike items with Dota 2 users. Two years ago, League of Legends users were hit by a giant phishing scam, in which an email was sent to them with an official-looking login page. Much like the CS: GO scam, users entered their details and instead of logging in to a platform, they sent them straight into the hands of the scammers.

Lesley Montoya

Update 21 November 2020