Over the last few years, more and more businesses have become the victims of ransomware attacks, malicious programs that encrypt files and hold them hostage. Usually, businesses are asked to pay thousands or even millions of dollars to get the decryption keys to unlock their files, but a new type of ransomware is asking for something a bit more unusual: a high score in a video game.

According to a report by Ars Technica, a new program called Rensenware has been locking down files unless a user is able to achieve a score of at least score 0.2 billion in the game “Touhou Seirensen~ Undefined Fantastic Object.” Even worse, the program requires that the high score be achieved on Lunatic, the highest of the game’s four difficulties.

Touhou is a series of Japanese games that belong to an incredibly difficult game genre known as bullet hell. Bullet hell games are typically top-down shooters reminiscent of old arcade games like “Galaga” or “1942” where players must dodge projectiles while shooting at enemies that appear from the top of the screen.

Rensenware warns that not only can it detect when a user achieves the score, it can also detect if a user tries to use a cheat program to make the game easier. Rensenware’s creator, who tweets in Korean under the username Tvple Eraser on Twitter, issued an apology after the program began to spread, explaining that he had created it as a joke.

“First of all, I’d like to apologize everyone for making shocked, or annoyed,” Tvlpe wrote on GitHub. “Ransomeware is defenitely kind of highly-fatal malware, but I made it. I made it for joke, and just laughing with people who like Touhou Project Series. so I distributed source code except compiled binary on the web. however, at the point of the distribution, the tragedy was beginning. [sic]”

Tvlpe has since released a version of Rensenware with the file encryption removed, but unfortunately, the program is already out in the wild being spread by other users, and since he released the source code, there is a possibility that similar programs could begin making the rounds in the future.

Image via Ars Technica