Watch Out For Fake Nintendo Switch Emulator Targeting ‘Legend of Zelda’ Fans

Itching to get your hands on Nintendo Switch’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on a PC emulator? Watch out for these fake emulators which will hack your personal data.

Emulators for the PC are popular for Nintendo and PlayStation handhelds and it’s especially nifty for younger gamers who did not get the chance to play older titles in older handhelds and consoles such as the Game Boy Color and PlayStation One.

And with the Nintendo Switch proving harder to procure than ever (whether in terms of console availability or financial capacity), gamers are turning to a Nintendo Switch emulator for the PC to be able to get their hands on Nintendo Switch’s hottest title yet, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

A quick search on Google and YouTube would, of course, yield a number of promising Nintendo Switch emulators for the PC. While gamers think this brings them a step closer to the newest Zelda game, little do they know that a lot of these Nintendo Switch emulators are actually ploys to hack into your computer and steal personal information, Express reports.

These fake Nintendo Switch emulators will come dressed in different promises and forms but security expert Symantec has spoken out about these emulators acting as bait to steal user information.

Over the last few weeks, a variety of Nintendo Switch emulators, and how to download and install them, have popped up all over the internet. Some emulators will prompt users to take a survey to unlock a download code while some emulators will try to install a malicious program. Some Nintendo Switch emulator surveys will even try to offer the user a chance to get a free Nintendo Switch.

Apart from fishy surveys that will try to extort personal information from the user such as e-mail and home address, contact details, and even bank and card information, there are also seemingly innocent Nintendo Switch emulators that will download a potentially unwanted application called PUA.OneSystemCare.

The file PUA.OneSystemCare was already previously tagged by Symantec as a potentially unwanted app that “displays misleading information about the computer’s performance. It then asks the user to pay to fix the issues.” Apparently, this file has now surfaced as a download from fake Nintendo Switch emulators, after downloading files named “Switch_Emulator_0.6.1.dmg” on Mac and “Switch_Emulator_061.iso” on Windows.

Symantec explains that there’s a common link in these fake Nintendo Switch emulator scams and it’s affiliate programs.

“Whether it’s survey scams or potentially unwanted applications, the YouTube videos and websites are likely driven by affiliate programs. The affiliate would be responsible for delivering a user to the website to fill out a survey, complete an offer, or download a file. For each successful conversion (a completed survey, offer, or download) the affiliate would collect a commission from the advertising network. In this case, it is unclear how much each affiliate is making for each conversion.”

So with Nintendo Switch emulators out of the window, what can you possibly do to get the itch that is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild out of your system? Well, Vice reports that known Wii U emulator Cemu has a playable emulated version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The emulated version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild over at Cemu has been around only days after the game came out with the Nintendo Switch, this is why some parts of the game are still unplayable and buggy. Exzap, one of Cemu’s developers, wrote over at Reddit that they’re working to get The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild completely playable on the Cemu, eliminating the need for users to get desperate and scavenge for reputable Nintendo Switch emulators when there is none yet.

“The goal is to get every game running 100% eventually. How we get there and how long it will take is difficult to answer. But in regards to [Breath of the Wild] I think we will see small incremental improvements in almost every future Cemu release. It’s been this way for most other games so far.”

As of the moment, stocks for Nintendo Switch are very limited but Daily Star reports that there are still units up for grabs at various Argos, Amazon, Tesco, and Gamestop stores locally.

[Featured Image by Neilson Barnard/Getty-Images]