Every Known Type of Malware: Security Experts Warn About Wallpapers on Steam
Malware has been hiding on Steam for months. Cybercriminals have infected wallpapers with malware to harm users. Here’s how you can protect yourself from these attacks in the future.
- Home
- News
- Software & Development
Don't miss any news!
Malware has been hiding on Steam for months. Cybercriminals have infected wallpapers with malware to harm users. Here’s how you can protect yourself from these attacks in the future.
Due to its immense popularity, the gaming platform Steam and its users are repeatedly targeted by malware attacks. Just at the beginning of 2026, an attack was reported where at least seven games were infected with malware. Now there’s another case of malware on Valve's platform, as summarized in a report by Kaspersky. But this time, the games are not the problem.
Steam Wallpapers Infected with Malware
In this case, the Wallpaper Engine was the target of cybercriminals. This is an application on Steam that allows you to download wallpapers for your Windows PC or Android smartphone. The special feature: the backgrounds are often animated, can play sounds, or even include small mini-games. The Wallpaper Engine is extremely popular on Steam, usually ranking among the top 100 best-selling apps and often in the top 10 applications with the most active users on Steam.
The backgrounds are not only created and published by the developers behind the Wallpaper Engine. Thanks to the connection to the Steam Workshop, all users can offer their own creations. According to Kaspersky, malware has been hidden in dozens of such backgrounds since the end of 2025, potentially causing damage to numerous gamers.
The focus is on the wallpapers that come with applications like mini-games. According to Kaspersky, such backgrounds allow “foreign code to be executed directly on your computer.” The malicious files were packaged together with the backgrounds in archives to avoid detection. In some cases, users even had to enter a password to unlock the archive. To facilitate this as smoothly as possible, the cybercriminals apparently positioned the passwords or published the wallpapers with instructions.
What Damage Can Occur?
The wallpapers analyzed by Kaspersky appeared unremarkable at first glance. The promised mini-games worked seamlessly. However, in the background, malware spreads quickly by placing a backdoor in the system. Through the backdoor, additional malware is downloaded that searches for login data for the users' Steam accounts. Once the cybercriminals gain access, they can upload further manipulated wallpapers to the Steam Workshop using those accounts.
Additionally, the malware was used to steal sensitive data, encrypt important files with ransomware and demand a ransom, as well as install hidden crypto miners. Kaspersky states: “By weaponizing the app wallpapers, cybercriminals have successfully distributed nearly every known type of malware in the world.”
The malware wallpapers are primarily targeted at Chinese gamers. However, as Kaspersky emphasizes, this does not mean that other cybercriminals cannot launch attacks in other regions as well. Meanwhile, Valve has already taken steps to remove the mentioned wallpapers and ban the accounts behind them. To stay safe in the future, users should avoid downloading app wallpapers from Steam. Additionally, antivirus programs can help quickly identify and quarantine the files after a download.
How to Save Money on Steam
Top Articles
