San Francisco, Mar 13 (IANS): The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US has warned that threat actors are now using fake rewards in so-called "play-to-earn" mobile and online games to steal millions worth of cryptocurrency.

They accomplish this through the use of custom-created gaming apps that promise massive financial rewards directly proportional to investments made to potential targets with whom they have previously established trust through lengthy online conversations, reports BleepingComputer.

"Criminals contact victims online and build a relationship with victims over time. Criminals then introduce victims to an online or mobile game, in which players purportedly earn cryptocurrency rewards in exchange for some activity, such as growing 'crops' on an animated farm," according to a new Public Service Announcement from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

Victims are instructed to purchase a cryptocurrency and create a crypto wallet in order to participate in these large reward games.

The scammers tell them that the alleged rewards increase as the victim stores more money in this wallet, said the report.

When victims stop depositing funds, the criminals drain their wallets by enticing them with fake rewards.

Additionally, these scammers will tell the victims they can recover their investment by paying additional taxes or fees, but this is all just a ruse, leaving the victims empty-handed, the report mentioned.

Meanwhile, Over 4,00,000 new malicious files were distributed every day by cybercriminals to attack users in 2022, indicating a 5 per cent growth compared to 2021, a new report has said.

According to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, in 2021, approximately 3,80,000 of these files were detected daily, while in 2022, Kaspersky's systems detected approximately 122 million malicious files, up 6 million from the previous year.