Fortnite won the war and became the biggest battle royale game.

But now it’s developed one big problem: cheat codes!

It's very easy to get software (Surefire, for example) which claims to take over the game for you. Do you wish to aim better in the game? With this software, you can!

Except, of course, there’s a loophole!

The cheats installed by many users millions of times, were supposed to give both in-game money and the ‘aimbot’ which makes shots very accurate. Instead they actually contain malware. What did these scammers want? More money!

Their code, which was discovered by the game streaming company called Rainway, allowed the man in the middle attack in order to actually direct web traffic via web ad services, which then makes the cheat’s owner make money.

After noticing the weird quantities of such error reports from their method of tracking, Rainway found that a common link was in the users playing, or actually cheating, in Fortnite. Instead of actually getting help, those who used the cheat codes found that they were facing adware, which is a common fate for hack downloads.

Ironically this also works as proof that cheaters will never prosper.

The anti-cheat companies need to roll up their sleeves and take adequate measures to protect the games from people who want to break them apart. BattlEye is a service which aims to protect both Fortnite and its main competition, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. They explained that this kind of cheat is common. They further elaborated that this cheat doesn’t quite function as a cheat, but is simply a disguised malware.

The cheats which actually do work are usually shared only in a few online private groups, making it hard for the anti-cheat companies to catch.

One source of such malware downloads called Suter, says these cheats often lead back to one country in particular. “China is one of the biggest challenges for us currently. The hacking market in China is huge. Hackers there update pretty much all the time and so it's a constant battle against them. As a result, the issue cannot be completely solved. However this also pushes us to constantly improve.”

In the February of 2016, malware was first discovered in some add-ons for the online card game called Hearthstone.

When it comes to Epic’s stance on cheats, last year there was a story about them suing a 14-year-old player who had streamed himself playing Fortnite with some cheat.

In a statement for The Verge, they said: "Epic is not okay with the ongoing cheating or copyright infringement from anyone at any age. As stated previously, we take cheating seriously, and we’ll pursue all available options to make sure our games are fun, fair, and competitive for players.”