A North Korean cybercrime group compromised a Chinese gaming platform popular with ethnic Koreans living near the DPRK-China border and used it to plant spyware on the devices of unsuspecting players, according to security researchers.

The attackers, identified by researchers as the espionage-focused group ScarCruft, tampered with Android and Microsoft Windows games hosted on sqgame[.]net, a site that offers traditional card and board games, the Slovak cybersecurity company ESET said in a report released Tuesday.

ESET said the campaign likely began in late 2024 and targeted users in Yanbian, an autonomous Chinese region near the