Tap on the brain: the second season of Hamster Kombat attracted players and scammers

Experts have recorded a significant increase in phishing activity against the background of the launch of the second season of Hamster Kombat. The audience of the popular "tapalka" in the past this month was almost 12 million gamers. Some of the players returned to the project with the start of the second season on February 18 amid promises of increased payments. The scammers also took advantage of the growing interest and began actively registering fraudulent sites — in February, their number exceeded 120 resources. At the same time, the HMSTR cryptocurrency itself showed tangible progress after the start of the second season, with an increase of 13.48%.

What is happening with Hamster now

There has been a noticeable increase in phishing activities related to the Hamster Kombat crypto game on the Runet. The popularity of the game continues to attract intruders who create fake websites, fake Telegram channels, and send spam messages promising "free coins," "unique strategies," or "exclusive updates." Igor Bederov, head of the Information and Analytical Research Department at T. Hunter, told Izvestia about this.

— The main factors driving the game's popularity in 2025 are an audience of several tens of millions of users, attempts to gain advantages in the second round of the game, and demand for the in—game HMSTR currency and related NFT assets. Cybercriminals' tactics include using fake "official" communities to collect data such as logins, passwords, and secret phrases of crypto wallets. As well as various HMSTR cryptocurrency mining bots, fake contests, imaginary improvements for the game that will download Trojans and other various forms of phishing to the victim's device," the expert explained.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov

The new season started on February 18 and attracted significant audience attention. It currently has 11.6million monthly users. The players have returned due to new mini-activities and promises of payments from the developers, we also see increased interest in thematic forums and Telegram channels for the game, there is a large new audience. At the start, the HMSTR coin collapsed, but in a week it was able to grow by 13.48%, noted IT expert Sergey Pomortsev.

Previous experience should have shown that "tapping the hamster" doesn't make money, but people are still interested in playing the second season, said Alexey Gorelkin, Phishman CEO and information security expert.

— The gameplay and mechanics have changed, and various ways to get HMSTR tokens have also appeared. Apparently, the desire for easy earnings overcomes previous experience, which is what the attackers use," he believes.

According to him, on profile channels, attackers post links that either lead to unexpected content (sometimes just advertising), or offer to download malware , which can potentially help fraudsters gain access even to the user's crypto assets.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Yulia Khramtsova

Head of BI.Dmitry Kiryushkin, ZONE Brand Protection, reported that in February, the company's specialists recorded 128 new domain registrations containing the word Hamster in their name. These include both legal and fraudulent resources.

— Attackers have adapted a well-known scheme with "easy earnings" to the theme of Hamster Kombat. For example, there is a fake resource on the Runet where online scammers offer users to register, purchase "hamsters", play with them and earn money in this way. However, a person will not be able to withdraw their earnings, besides, they risk their money: attackers will be asked to buy a boost or pay a commission for withdrawing funds," said Olga Svistunova, senior content analyst at Kaspersky Lab.

What are the prospects for Hamster Kombat

Due to the low payouts following the results of the first season of Hamster Kombat, the chances of last year's success are low, according to F6 (formerly F.A.C.C.T.). At the same time, scammers still use old scripts with a cryptograiner, malware to steal users' personal data, they added.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov

The game now has three official bots: most of them have over 11 million users, the other two have 2 million each, the final figures are about 16 million, and this is not even 10% of the official statistics of last season, said Sergey Kuznetsov, an expert on cryptocurrencies. It is noteworthy that it is indicated inside the application: in the interim period before the start of the second season, there were about 116 million players, that is, more than 100 million

— If it is possible to return the numbers to 30 million, then this can be considered a successful return. A springboard for the HMSTR currency can now be provided by potentially new projects in the Hamster Kombat universe, but even this is doubtful," the expert believes.

Following the results of the first season, Hamster Kombat fulfilled its obligations. Many people did not like the amount of payments, but the game had 300 million users, more than 16 million holders of the coin itself. It just wasn't mathematically possible to distribute a lot to everyone, said Vitaly Koltsov, CEO of Axiom Game Labs.

— The success of the second season is primarily facilitated by the availability of money for marketing and promotion of their projects. The second is the fanbase, out of 300 million, at least 1% became fans of the series anyway — and they will continue to spend time in it. And the third is the cohort of influencers who have benefited from this and continue to support Hamster Kombat," the expert added.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Dmitry Korotaev

Experts recommend to be critical of any information on the Internet. This includes using two-factor authentication to protect your messenger account, not telling anyone one-time authorization codes, and installing a security solution that will warn you if you attempt to access phishing sites. And if you download Hamster, then only from official resources.

On February 25, the authors of Hamster announced the launch of the Hamster Network platform, a blockchain system for gamers who want to earn more with the project. After that, the value of the HMSTR cryptocurrency increased from 13.4% to 18.5%.